You have been taken by the Mists

Author Topic: The Panther in the moon:  (Read 16564 times)

Silas Rotleaf

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The Panther in the moon:
« on: August 24, 2018, 04:06:22 AM »
This is far from Ungrad.
I am 35 winters old, though I do not look it.
That is a benefit of my people. Especially the yellow eyed ones.
We Valachani are a bit like the Barovians but darker skinned and more spiritual.

I am an acolyte moarnekone. I have not yet earned my scars as our hunters and trappers do but I make up for it in voluntary facial piercings.


Today the Lord of Beasts granted me the ability to conjure an enormous snake. I was hoping for a panther but this will do nicely in the meantime. A kind metalsmith named Jack fashioned me with chainmaille and an excellent shield, also.

We Valachani are not known for being men of letters. The priestly caste is literate but book learning is looked down upon.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2018, 09:46:19 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2018, 06:03:22 PM »
I still am not sure what name to give my moon snake. Hmm!

Orm! That works. I will call this moon viper Orm.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2018, 06:52:46 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2018, 11:24:53 PM »
Well, I was on a vision quest when the mists took me from Valachan to Barovia.
Hopefully there will be some signs or omens, some sort of portents soon!

When I turn monstrous beetles and giant spiders, sometimes they explode.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2018, 10:20:17 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2018, 06:33:08 PM »
I derive some measure of joy and satisfaction in using the power of my prayer to turn undead and heal my allies while at the same time harming our foes.
It would seem that properly destroying the undead does bring them some measure of peace. A final rest as it were.

The Dustman outlander I sometimes talk to agrees that the final or "true" death is important for souls to achieve to be able to move on.
Perhaps the inability of such things to move on when they cannot is what results in monsters happening.

It is a sign of the world being too clogged up with tormented agonized souls?
Maybe it is somewhat as that Cthulhu cultist hints at when I speak to him.

I don't think the whole world itself necessarily is in increasingly dire need of cleansing but I do think the cursed parts need being purified where possible.

As a lone fighter of undead things which would choose to prey on the living I am as an infinitesimal dew drop or single leaf in the jungle. One might also note that some trees repel the infestation of ants and beetles with poison in their sap.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2018, 02:48:57 AM »
Lonely and tired, also lacking in purpose.
Hmm, I am a priest.
I wonder... Well, I didn't swear celibacy.
I wonder if anybody could like me.

There are some people whom I fight well with.
That bardess Olivia for example and Desh. Moonbrooke too.

I fixed my corroded weapon on my own. Desh said he'd help me but something must have came up. I waited all day until nightfall for him in the Vallaki crafting hall but no Desh.
So I went to Krofburg the next day and got a smithing apron and got to work on fixing things myself.

Looking sharp there Cristan! Your pure black tabard with the metallic blue and gray bits depicting a feline face is very snappy. The gray fur cape goes nicely with it.
You have moons and a star as the emblem on your shield now too. It is appropriate.
My new boots are steel plated and of dire bear fur.

The Garda have been making many arrests lately but I guess they are really just detainments? I thought those taken in would be dead for sure.
Leomont and Vine.
Glad they were alright but it is still concerning.

Empty like a mote of grain pollen or a speck of dust.
I drift... Without much interacting.
It feels... Disgusting to an extent.
What is there to interact with people in this valley about though?

They often talk amongst themselves of a "mist camp"; I don't feel ready to go there yet though.
When I was finished with repairing my damaged weapon I left the smithing apron, smithing hammer and a light mining pick in a magic pouch at the side of the Vallaki Morninglord temple in the outskirts where people sometimes leave food and clothes. Then I aided in crypt delving with some people.
When I got back the bag was no longer there. I can feel good I gave someone the tools for a trade. Perhaps some former vagrant is using it to make a purpose for himself.

Would that I could too. Maybe it will come in time.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2018, 12:19:09 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2018, 04:24:15 PM »
On the subject of women,
Eve and Lyndsay seem being nice to me.
I am not sure what to make of that.

I like being friends with Dawnfather Heilyn and told him as much.
We may come from two rather different faiths but we both share no love for the undead and are big on charity.

I got a little stronger and can call forth more advanced blessings but am still a bit disappointed.
I know I could be more powerful than I am if I just tried harder and was more intensive in my devotions perhaps...

I also attended a lecture held by Professor Cornell in the sage tower.
He was talking about Sithicus which I know Valachan shares a border with. Attending this lecture has cleared up some of my sense of the geography of the southern part of the core.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2018, 04:42:44 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2018, 09:32:46 AM »
Lyndsay Arcanix...
A complex woman.
She is a warrior and I take it an offworlder and doesn't seem afraid of anything.
She's also unabashedly a mage which complicates things.
She... Flirted with me a little unless that was just my imagination and has said on a few occasions she "likes" me.
People make up bad things about her that aren't really reflective of her actions.

She loves battle.
She used to wear red armor but is definitely not a Hazlani or red wizard... Judging by her long blonde hair and lack of tattoos (Obviously!). Now she wears black armor.
People are calling her a man eater (or man stealer? Whichever is the more shocking of the two and when neither of those gives pause or raises eyebrows even go so far as suggest she is into elven women, tsk tsk that seems a tired cliche if I've ever heard one!), they are claiming she has murderously "dueled" lots of people, that she has sworn allegiance to the vampires and other things designed to make her out to be much more terrible than she is.
It's very childish of them...

I learned that her master she studies under is an elven scholar. The elf seems most reasonable. He is not a vampire.

She told me one of the people propagating this foul gossip is the elf Tinu who it seems she has crossed. Are people truly so dumb they assume since Lyndsay wears dark colored armor that in of itself needs necessarily make her an evil person?

Wow, people are quite dumb here in Vallaki.
I miss Ungrad and Valachan's steamy jungle heartland, the Forest of Beasts, with its never ending strange bird songs and animal calls...
Barovia has more bats than birds... They chirp too but it is not the same thing.

Judith and Leomont... Two Ezrite Purehearts, one an anchorite and the other a Templar... I have held vigil at night outside the Lady's Rest Inn and Morninglord temple in Vallaki's Western Outskirts a time or two with the former and explored the ruins next to Raduta Keep with the latter.
I hope they don't mean to try to convert me.  Any effort by people to convince me Yutow does not in fact reside his days and nights since The Pacification (his sacrifice and ascension that the dark skinned Valachani aborigines and invading light-skinned Vaasi were merged into one people so as to no longer be at war) up on the moon watching over us all is wasting his or her time; I am an acolyte Moarnekone. Someday soon I hope to be a full fledged priest of Yutow.

Mighty is The Peacebringer.  So long as there is moonlight you need not *fear* the night... It is not absolute darkness.  He watches over us all. He and the animal spirits he uses as messengers.

I am not a fan of Lyndsay's wizardry. Or any wizardry. It seems a necessary evil for many outsiders though so asking them to forgo or forsake their arcane practices would not be reasonable when it is I who find myself in the minority.
I will thus begrudgingly tolerate it when it is useful and in situations where the majority of other people in a group are into such blasphemies, Yutow preserve me.

Strong women remind me of home. Again I am homesick.
Hmm Eve, Tattiene, and Lyndsay... Though they are of foreign heritage... I feel they would perhaps with some more years experience not be out of place as clanheads of family compounds were they Valachani women. They are not though.

Elves. Elves and other fey (or the fey? Are elves not fey? I thought they all get lumped together) are intermediaries to the spirit world. They are much longer living than us humans although being a yellow eyed Valachani and of the priestly caste I am myself longer living than an average person otherwise would be.  Elves are a step closer to the gods than we who are shorter lived and this is common knowledge amongst my people.

Rilonwae... A nice but curiously strange little female elf, she wears scant clothing and doesn't seem to catch cold but also does not know where she is from. I guess when the mists took her it affected her memory.  Perhaps she came from some place with a tropical clime? She does not look or act like a Sithican. No, she isn't as dour as they tend to be and her hair is not their typical black, white or gray.  I wish I could help her recover her missing memories but honestly I have no idea how one would go about doing that.

It is okay for humans and elves to be friends or work together but unions between the two races are bad luck. I understand that half elves are a thing which do exist but wonder how those children of such often ill-fated romantic liasons are treated by the societies of each parent.  Perhaps it makes for a stressful upbringing...
This feels a bit hypocritical for me to think considering the origin of my own people.  In our cosmology we Valachani are ourselves a hybrid product of two forebearer races... Made into an entire civilization of one. A newer race combining the sturdiness and woodsmanship of the original Valachani aborigines with the cleverness and head for strategy of the Vaasi would be conquerors.

I do quite loathe when people with little better to do deign it upon themselves to attempt tearing other people down. Is life not already hard enough as is?
However, a priest of Yutow is expected to endure hardship. Yutow Himself made the ultimate sacrifice with the aide of Panther's counsel... Look upon the green skinned, golden eyed martyr how he cries and bleeds, with outstretched palm and broken legs asking the original Valachani and invading Vaasi to set aside their differences and come together as one.

Akin to the tallest great redwood trees, we endure.
As years go by through famine, times of plenty, plagues, white fever, attack by beast and monster the people rely on us Moarnekone to grant the undead and angry spirits rest, tame creatures and act as mediators in disputes between the peasants and The Baron and Lady Adeline's militia, the Black Leopards. So we endure.

Each scar (up to a point) and every harrowing thing survived is a badge of pride. It is a roadmap of your lifeline leading up to the present and going through your past. The physical map on one's skin is testament to every triumph of man over wild.

Be not mistaken though... You can never truly tame the wilderness. It will lure you with a sense of false peace then when your guard is lowered or you are too old, sick or injured to fend for yourself a predator will sneakily and swiftly pick you off.  That is the law of the jungle.  Nature, she can be very unforgiving. Merciless even.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2018, 02:53:35 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2018, 03:58:25 PM »
There isn't much to do for me yet doesn't seem to be much anyone to do it with.
Not yet...
There has to be something though lying there beneath the surface.

At times I wonder what and feel it could maybe, hopefully be very interesting.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2018, 09:18:07 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2018, 06:40:28 PM »
I saw a flyer saying a circus was looking to hire unique individuals and those with interesting talents.  Do I join it? It is not dignified to be a freak and spectacle on display but I am a rarity even among my own people. Hmm!

I could use it as a vehicle to pursue other interests of my own and perhaps meet some women.

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2018, 03:52:20 PM »
Those circles of standing stones... Suggest there were at one point orders tending the land.  They look long untended though.  Also some of the creatures around the site are warped. Some foul magic appears responsible.
A barbarian "plague bearer" of some sort who is a champion of decay and a voluptuous elf who we have chosen to be the aspect of Life and I have tried to purify the area. Naturally I am Night.

Our ritual I think worked but weakly.  Some of the native fauna returned if only briefly when we had completed our rites.
We didn't really know what we were doing making offerings on the altar and each had to guess.  If we could meet say an archdruid... He or she could probably show us how to do it better.

I know we aren't really the traditional "circle" of nature guardians.  Would a bunch of forest, plain, tundra, desert or swamp protectors even acknowledge amateur Night, Rot and Life/fertility?

We don't really know that much about what we are doing but we do know the lands are tainted in an unnatural way and undead on cursed grounds outnumber the living an average of three to one at the very minimum.  It is not balanced.

Our idea is that by getting together people who each embody a distinct aspect of nature our "circle" gets closer to complete. We have noticed that there is something about restoring this balance that weakens the taint.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2018, 08:33:02 PM »
Eve has someone.
Maybe some day I will too. Hmm.

So I got my new armor and I dyed it light blue. Ugh...
Not used to how much brighter it is than my old tabard's colors, etc. I think I will try and find some black or deeper gray cloth dye for it or see what colors I can get the leather parts to be.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2018, 03:49:20 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2018, 03:07:14 AM »
Apparently I had frozen to death up on Mt. Baratak summit between the Ice tomb and Jezra Wagner's ice palace.

I am not positive how many days it had been elapsed, but eventually a kind hunter thawed me out.
I'd lost my sickle and shield in an avalanche. He gave me a writ claim to one of his spare shields which was very nice but it's to be collected in some "City of Lights" I have never really heard much about or been to before.

I am from a jungle country. We don't know what snow even is!

Mister Borval says he can have a new gilded sickle ready for me if I bring him 1500 gold coins. I'm about 2/3 of the way to the price now.

A young Voodan priestess from Souragne gave me a doll she blessed. That was nice. She was a lot younger than me as it turns out but I gave her a hug and explained my people think spirits are all around all the time too.

For now I am brandishing my censer in one hand and a silver spear I picked up in the other. It doesn't feel as good, I extensively trained in use of the sickle but it is better than nothing... Although I did learn that claws of the savage and darkfire or flame weapon can be used both at the same time on your gloves to fabulous effect when you are punching things.

I also managed to teach little Revka some about fate. In the end she wanted the good luck doll the Souragnean Voodan girl gave me and felt it looked like her. The priestess and I each blessed it and there was a slight resemblance so who am I to argue with fate?

Fate is predestined but we do not get to see all of it unraveled and sorted neatly in front of us. Nono you snatch glimpses and base predictions off patterns. General patterns.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 01:06:51 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #12 on: September 16, 2018, 03:22:31 AM »
We do not get to see all of our fate at once. Only a god can do that perhaps...
And yet...
At most a human sage may only catch small glimpses of it at particular odd moments.

What to do with myself?
I need to make more money.
I need to get a replacement weapon and figure out where Port A Lucine is to pick up that shield claim.

I also need to continue exploring what it means to be a good priest.
At some point I want a cat's eye pendant because it is an important symbol of my faith.

Tattienne seems pretty nice but it hit me that I hardly know anything about her. She spoke of fighting styles... She is a martial woman? I guess that makes sense.
Okay so everybody is so very well... beautiful I guess.

Is it wrong to want to be interested in the people around you?
I don't believe so.
I think it is up to a priest to be interested in the people of whatever community he finds himself inserted into.

That man who was going off to war and asked me to read his fortune. I guessed mostly but I tried to give him some reassuring attempts at answers as best I could that he would probably make it through more than one battle and that since it was against the Falkovnians... Well they've not got a good track record for winning. Isn't there that treaty of the four towers designed to deal with that angry nation?

I am a priest of Yutow. It is a faith not many are particularly familiar with outside my native Valachan. Being the only Valachani doesn't feel great either as we are a sociable people.

So, predestiny... It doesn't mean you are necessarily doomed but you have to keep an eye open for patterns to be taken as omens. Usually very mundane ones.
The enlisted soldier for example... He told me of gambling patterns and how when he was on a losing streak he felt the third time would not go better and chose to fold that game. How he had a hunting accident that morning too and yes, 3 and 4 are quite important numbers.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 05:27:10 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #13 on: September 17, 2018, 04:39:25 PM »
I reflect on omens, symbols, patterns and what it means to be a good priest.
We are... The mediators of conflicts between the classes in a community. Not instigators of strife in it.

That is one of the Peacebringer's lessons. I think it is possibly one of His more powerful and wise ones.  I try to keep it close to my heart. It was why I went into the clergy. It explains the function of our role as priests.
Appease, defend, validate, embrace.

Try to support the disenfranchised. Supporting community is a good thing, you should praise and encourage that, not mock and ridicule it.  It's how you survive against the unforgiving wilds and forces a lone person can very vaguely just barely comprehend.

Bridge differences where you can. We may not care about each other yet even the most taboo outsider is usually at least partially concerned with his or her own individual survival.
We may as people not have anything personally invested in someone else.
We may have our own selfish motivations behind helping someone in the hopes they will in turn later give back.
As for that, some do and some don't. Give back that is.

The Pacification was the ultimate divine expression of bridging hostile differences. Yutow sacrificed Himself on the advice of His best friend Panther, that the Vaasi and original aboriginal Valachani would become one people. He sped up what would have happened over the course of a much longer period of miserable conquest and He fused the two warring peoples with perfect cultural assimilation before one race had a chance to annihilate the other.

In changing the equation, He forever altered the environment.
Though it was a remarkably clever solution which benefited many that is violating a natural law so to punish Himself, He chose to no longer directly intervene and continued to observe us, His blended from a self-imposed exile on the moon.
Yutow could no longer be Yutow the Protector. This marked His transformation into Yutow the Peacebringer. The form of the old God is dead. His newer reincarnation is in many ways similar though more powerful than its antecedent. We do not kid ourselves that He will go back to His old worldly Protector form; It was cast aside like a snake sheds his old skin when it no longer fits in order to make room for the new.

He still protects us though, as part of His burden and responsibility. As a people we would likely not exist if not for His interference in our ancestors' hostilities.

I am... grateful.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2018, 04:54:57 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2018, 10:32:42 AM »
I was kissed by an elf?!
Hmm, the ancestors would not like this.
I am... Somewhat alright with it.

Ril...
I guess she likes me. Huh.
So it would seem.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2018, 10:36:46 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2018, 04:42:38 PM »
Another day, another set of duties.
I am trying to help some of the newly misted who arrive through the Outlander's Gate get their bearings.

Won a game with Karis. The prize... Was worth it.
I asked for a kiss and a hug.
Oh but it was best two out of three and we did lose to Alphonse so we have to eventually get him a gold gilt steel rapier.

Also there was this woman who was afraid of heights and made me carry her across the rope bridges...
I've gotten a little more powerful in my devotions and have been rewarded by Yutow. I can call on the strength of Bull and divine favor for extra strength. If I time it just right I could reasonably carry two people across the bridge at once.
I didn't mind that she clung to me but hope that did something to reduce her fear of the things since the village Karis, Alphonse and I escorted the brother and his two sisters to has many bridges to get to and from it.

Karis says she wants to replenish her stash of whiskey; I will keep an eye out for a supply for her.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2018, 03:20:59 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #16 on: September 22, 2018, 03:12:16 AM »
I finally found the right dyes.
Borrowed a shield from Mordo, a Barovian ragpicker who was grateful to me for prying a helmet off that was stuck to his head. I guess he had found it while sorting through trash? He was getting hungry so I slid some cheese in the slit of the visor (can't well drink soup in a helmet). We had to get some bear grease in the morning and slather it around the neck of the thing, then I made two strength prayers and gave it a good pull. Off it popped and boy was he glad to be able to wash his face finally I think; I am not sure how many days it had been stuck on his head for.

Fought some skeleton knights with Ril and Murky. Yelled "Leave my elf alone!" And battered the lot of the things with positive energy volleys.

I owe one Zaren a sum of 250 gold pieces.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2018, 03:22:15 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #17 on: September 23, 2018, 10:01:04 AM »
I got to Port A Lucine...
Unfortunately it seems the shield the hunter gave me the claim for once cashed in was not steel reinforced afterall; Oh well, now I have two thick chitin tower shields and it is always good to have a spare.  Also the roaring lion-head design it features grows on me.

Orm grew too.

I can't help but notice spring seems to be in the air and lots of people around me are coupling up. I don't know if anyone out there would want to do so with me; I know I am a fairly attractive and exotic specimen on the outside but who knows.

Marcus and I interceded in a dispute between a Darkonian (I think?) and some newly misted person who couldn't speak or understand any common. The latter had a finely crafted scimitar and shield both in a quite alien style I have never seen before.
None of us could comprehend what he was saying and a fight seemed inevitable but once everybody was calmed down and having food and drink, tension seemed to slide a bit.

Somebody is going to have to teach that unusual foreigner some common.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2018, 10:04:37 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #18 on: September 25, 2018, 05:00:42 AM »
Alaethe and Karis are nice to me.
Hmm. I got a silver gilded steel helmet and finally the shield I had been yearning for... Now I can defend and protect people properly against werecreatures!

Gah Edwina and Romeo are very interesting too.
I enjoy women who I have good fighting chemistry with; If we can support each other well protecting each other in battle, who is to say what other things we might not also be effective teammates at?
« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 03:45:26 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #19 on: September 27, 2018, 06:05:10 AM »
I bought a belt of grounding, met many more strange characters, earned more money painstakingly, was robbed of every coin I had (I had saved up 5,500 some odd gold bits) point blank by a blame shifter who tried to throw our halfling under a proverbial cart... And so, some one had planted that figurine behind the little miss as a red herring and I think I know who.

I also know Monroe and Liddy are to be trusted. Although Liddyon is a wizard and you know how my culture feels about studied arcanists. She was nice to me and gave me some money when the unrepentant one tried causing further strife then left. Now I have enough to travel a bit and get back on my feet which was very nice.

Oh and Urk and I were to go fishing in Ghastria using a carrion crawler as bait for a giant sea serpent but ended up rescuing Shira, Rhonda and Th'rar instead from a cave of horrible things and gold.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2018, 02:17:07 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #20 on: September 28, 2018, 07:46:48 PM »
Apparently... It may have not been Mathel.
Th'rar made a generous donation to my church too.
Arianwen gave me a suggestion: More people would know of Yutow outside Valachan if I made some shrines dedicated to my God. Other churches have choirs and some even dancing. Hmm.

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #21 on: September 30, 2018, 10:04:22 AM »
What does my God want from me?
I do feel just slightly tainted... I started feeling that way shortly after back when Desh and I fought with the red vine in that cave at that one vampire's odd request and apparently blackened, shriveled heartfelt behest.

I struggle with it within.
Some sort of a psychic wound perhaps?
I do not in any way feel cut off from Yutow.
I am still an effective priest, and yet...

This is frustrating.
The call of the wild is something I can communicate, an idea my barbarian friend Th'rar understands maybe better than anyone else could.

I am also growing exceedingly tired of the druid Hewitt doing little mean things to me.*

It was quite a surprise to me to find out that apparently Ihsana is some sort of cannibal, for real actually and that this is what it was she had gotten in trouble with the Garda for.

People told me how could you not have known and to be honest well, I was out of town when it is said to have happened.
I don't keep an eye on every Vallaki decree but now that I know and Boris has told me of how he saw her eating a corpse while he was exploring the sewer system I will need to decide what if anything to do about Ihsana and her ghoulish habit.

Is this even my place to decide?
Are people simply overreacting the way they almost always do?

I was among those who witnessed Fade's public flogging. The way the crowd's reaction was out of proportion you would think they had witnessed the mute elf being flayed alive instead of just beaten and humiliated. Her crime, as explained to us by the Garda woman was apparently defiance towards the Garda.

*Of course, if I tell this to him I am certain he will tell me something to the effect of: If you don't like how I treat you then that is your problem, not mine Valachani, and you know I could just simply end you as a solution.
Why is that? Because many people are brutes.
There is no justice, there is no vengeance for this sort of bullying garbage.

Because they can, because they are stronger or more popular than you, because people are apathetically jaded and simply do not care... There is a reason life is terrible for so many.

Priests are supposed to be a voice of clarity, one of moral guidance. They are someone whom the people in a community can look up to and trust.  I fulfill my acolyte duties and yet... Hmm.

I loathe this attitude by your tormentors and their supporters you should and ought to thank them for giving you unnecessary extra hardship and adversity.
If someone were to give you a sandwich which they had defecated in, then be offended when you didn't want another from them, since they had made it, for you? Yes, that would be similar.

When people scowl at you or they stare disapprovingly and gawp idiotically as so many fish... It is disgusting.  You who would do this in a crowd think you are beyond reproach and there are no consequences for the ways in which you treat the other people around you.
Sometimes, such as when one is foreign, that is often the case. Unfortunately or fortunately.

Yutow bore the beatings of two armies without complaint. So too must I learn not to voice my being upset about personal mistreatment, except perhaps here in my personal journal, and even then... I do hope no one finds it.

What is incredibly stupid is the smug attitude people will oft voice that any misfortune which befalls an individual has to be entirely, completely deserved for the sufferer's own failings and flaws as a person.

Things are fated to happen in certain ways and to certain people. I of all people am well aware of that but to those who are not priests, who said it was up to them to interpret the supposed mandates of the gods? That is a high blasphemy.

If he was just simply giving me a hard time I could let that go but the bald one was also less than kind towards Annabelle.

I was born special and due to my yellow eyes, my being a cat eyes Valachani, I was put in the priestly caste by our wise women.  How long has it been since the last potlach I attended?

I remember attending shaman lessons outside Ungrad and the advice of my uncle in Rotwald. Also the brutally effective training regimen I was put through as a child designed to bring out my spiritual gifts.
How many of those who would chastise and put me down can say they were trained as a young brave in the way we cat eyes are?
I'd like to see them live through such things stoically as our rites of passage demand.

Could they withstand walking through a bed of burning coals to get the fetische of the medicine men and wise women? How about being tied up and left next to a mound, a bivouac of army ants in order to hone your divinely given ability to repel insects??  Over and over. You either learn to channel the turning pests ability granted to you by Yutow and such jungle spirits as his chief friend and servant Panther or you get bitten repeatedly until you give up, pass out, die or master calling on the spirit gift.  This is a blessing, you see.

Believe me, I do well know that suffering builds character. You would not if you in fact knew anything about the tribes and clans of Valachan be trying to lecture any of us about the virtue of bearing suffering considering our ancestral origin or indeed any significant part of our way of life.
Of course these outsiders do not! To expect them to speak through anything but the comfortably sheltered lens of ignorance to our ways would be a mistake.

You know who else thinks of violence and bullying as a grand solution toward solving even the most minor and inconsequential of disputes? The more corrupt and especially hidden actually monstrous members of the black leopard militia.  Those whom we the priests of He who is The Peacebringer are dutied to intervene on behalf of for the peasants.  Bratty nobles with a violent streak and actual werecreatures... The latter are the reason all priests are strongly encouraged to have a silver weapon in hand at all times in case of even if it is something so minor as a dagger.

An outsider asked me why the people do not simply rise up over our Baron and  the oftentimes wicked militia.  He suggested we deserved our ill-treatment for not doing so but without suggesting any sort of alternative regime style to replace the old and current, espousing any sort of revolution is... Untenable and not realistic.  He does not understand the full scope of the power Ulrik II has. In many ways our Baron is comparable to Barovia's Count.

There is also one very good and important task the black leopards perform.
That is patrolling of the roads, keeping monsters, would-be invaders and hostile wildlife from overrunning things.  Valachan is few cities and settlements surrounded on all sides by a brutally savage jungle, river rapids and dotted in unforgiving forests.

For more than 420 years the tribes and clans have had their medicine men and wise women use the nature magic granted to them by our God Yutow and his fey and animal spirit messengers. We do know something about what we are doing even those of us who are clerics and not "proper" druids.  I may not understand so much what is needed to maintain the hallowed status of a grove as it marked by a circle of standing stones, this is true.
However what my people do is not deserving of extermination based on what any outside deity may have told you about the way your nature magic and blessings are supposed to work (from while you were in a different land!), I do not think.

Do people not understand there is a reason for why things in this... Plane or realm as you may call it are done as they are?  To continue to assume it needs be the same fundamentally as your Krynn, Oerth, Earth, Sigil, Faerun, Athas and so on... Well, there is a reason not many outsiders tend to last so very long in our world.  We natives who have survived for generations in the harsh landscape this world offers, those who have eked out a living in whatever way they could, who have survived enough to have families who also continue to persist, those with legacy... May know at least a thing or two more about the horrors this world generates than a freshly misted does.
Conversely, not every outsider is a blithering idiot who deems it their imperative to tell entire peoples that their way of life is wrong.

One of Yutow's greatest strengths is his ability to bridge peoples' differences. He is compassion and survival.  All peoples, even ones not from the same worlds have at least some universal commonalities. I must strive to understand these outsiders better. Yes, think like the priest that you are and do not have these imaginary arguments with people not here such as Hewitt and the dwarf.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2018, 03:55:44 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #22 on: October 01, 2018, 04:36:00 PM »
Life is complex.
I stand over the what can only be referred to as bodies of unnatural abominations I have slain. Formerly undead things which I hate.
The man I call Crazy Coat is a necromancer and he has saved my life.

I still detest this blackest of arcane arts (and all its proponents as any goodly or perhaps even but a neutral cleric ought) but why did he save me?
Could it be that perhaps not all... NO, that has to be a trick.
However, he doesn't really seem that evil, just a bit insane if anything. Hmm.

Maybe morality is not so cut and dry.  This is a dangerous thought which I may not be able to hope to ever be able to safely communicate to anyone.

I focus my fury on undead creatures and lycanthropes, the latter is the name more academically inclined city peoples use to categorize shapeshifting monsters that inflict their power, their curse and condition upon others.

The practitioners of such magics as would create and manipulate undead are foul, no? Well most are.
What if there was a smaller subset who were not absolutely evil but were instead unwell in the mind and conflicted? Again, this is a dangerous thought to have.

Such wrong thin kings shall not be tolerated.  Those who express such feelings and beliefs shall necessarily be purged.  I fight this slight taint in my soul.
In Yutow there is strength and love.
This is... It must be a test.
The Peacebringer has chosen to stress the limits of my capabilities in a test of tolerance vs intolerance.

The great Bridger of Differences died and ascended for us. For our ancestors, for those Valachani yet to be born and really for all of us.

Even simultaneously both great and terrible men such as the Baron.

Also remember that evil seduces. It worms its way into our hearts and souls.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2018, 08:47:16 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #23 on: October 02, 2018, 11:40:18 AM »
I find my destiny for now inexplicably tied to the Cade family. Annabelle and her father.

« Last Edit: October 02, 2018, 11:48:45 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: The Panther in the moon:
« Reply #24 on: October 03, 2018, 05:28:40 AM »
I'm glad Saffron and Fade didn't rob me. I like them.
Okay so...
I managed to rescue both Karis and Arkhaan with help from Zaryn...
Also Private Miklos is alive again and I found out... He does not have faith in religions. Not many Barovians do and he didn't say exactly quite outright he thought gods didn't exist (I guess? He kind of did)... Just more that they were stupid and silly? But I pray for his soul anyway because he is a good man who does what he does to try and help his community Yutow!

Also, paid off my debt to Zaren.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2018, 03:42:54 PM by Silas Rotleaf »