Squaring the Circle

Squaring the Circle

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Two Native Kine of the Nine Hells


The Stench Kow (above) and the Gathra (below).


Saturday, August 15, 2015

Fires of Dis: ECL 1 Mithil human wizard 1: Bio

Benai' Evaerist Misthril was raised in a small rural town in Glorium. She is 18 years old, 5'6", 105 lbs, a wisp of a young woman, with curly shoulder length ginger hair which she usually stretches into in a pony tail. She has a haughty demeanor but does not seem cruel. She wears her explorer's outfit as it were a costume or some kind of joke. If she becomes angry and unable to act, she has a habit of twirling her hair around a finger and pulling. The angrier she becomes, the harder she pulls.  The pony tail is a way to avoid this tic.

She was always called Mithil since she can remember and that is the only name she uses. Although her home town was poor, Mithil grew up in relative luxury, raised by an Aunt Ea'vol, the midwife to the village, who taught Mithil some of the arcane arts. Ea'vol, for reasons of her own, taught Mithil and her sister knowledge of the ways of aristocrats and nobility.

When Mithil was eight years old, her older sister Benai' Rael Misthrol was seduced by an illusionist, going by the name of Frale, who was passing through small village. Mithil did not trust the woman and it was obvious neither did her aunt, but Misthrol was in love.

One night, Mithil followed the couple to a barn determined to discover their secret. Mithil learned her sister had been bewitched and arrived just in time to see her handed over to slave traders. To her lasting shame, the eight year old girl did not intervene but hid, trying to understand what was happening.

When she could escape without being caught, Mithil ran to her Aunt who conducted her own investigation. Ea'vol concluded that Misthrol been enslaved and taken to the lower planes by Frale.

Mithil has devoted her life to learning arcane arts and her Aunt has done her best to prepare her if a chance came to rescue Misthrol. When Mithil was 17, the illusionist came back to town. Few could see through the woman's disguise but Mithil knew because the woman's face and voice had haunted her dreams. Mithil followed Frale and, knowing the town and its people, snuck into Frale room at the inn. There she found Frale asleep, drunk, on the bed and her trunk flung open, its contents in disarray.

The item that intrigued Mithil most was something that looked like a pass for travel in the plane of Dis so that the bearer could establish a spice trade franchise for some man named Dermont. A note was attached to the pass and Mithil rushed back to her Aunt to see if she could decipher the note.

The note read, "Daughter, I know that you will use this pass for your own purposes, but the opportunity is real. Dermont will help you establish a spice franchise which will further our families' interests and your own far more than your excursions in the slave trade. You will note that I have destroyed all of your other passes so this is your only chances. Please, daughter, make something of it! Your devoted father."

Mithil returned to her Aunt who whirled into action making a copy of the pass. Mithil questioned Ea'vol but was gruffly rebuffed as the old woman concentrated. Finally, satisfied, she handed the copy back to Mithil, "put this back in her trunk just like you found it. It should pass Frale's inspection but the guards will know." A wicked smile of a kind Mithil had never seen before curled her Aunt's lipls.

"What guards, Aunt?" Mithil asked, but the old woman hurried her on her way. Mithil returned the fake pass and the note and ran back to her Aunt.

They both monitored the inn until they saw Frale leaving in a sulk. Mithil and her Aunt followed the woman, even to Dis, and Ea'vol gave her life to save Mithil. They had only one pass, and had been exceptionally careful, but eventually they were simply ambushed. The old woman fought with a ferocity which shocked Mithil.

After she buried her aunt, Mithil travelled without care looking for some hint of Frale, whom she had lost.. Mithil was asked several times for her pass which she dutifully gave but one night she saw the illusinonist again at an inn. Mithil bribed the innkeeper to call the guards and, just as Ea'vol had predicted, the guards instantly recognized the fake pass.

Mithil and her Aunt had hoped to use this brief moment of vulnerability to leverage information as to hat happened to Misthrol. They had hoped for a chance to get information with a promise to aid the vile Frale into divulging information as to Misthrol's whereabouts.

Neither Mithil or her Aunt realized there would be no delay. Frale was taken away screaming and Mithil had no chance to follow. It now appears that Mithil is trapped in Dis with no clue how to find out if her sister is alive.