Last episode, Vahid became the Seeker — he stepped into his role as a wielder of great magics, forged an alliance with a powerful spirit, and he allowed Katrin, the spirit-talker of the Sun-Spear Band, to lead him to a sacred place where he experienced a vision of the fate-tree.
Katrin explained that the tree could offer visions of the past, present and future, and we left off the episode with a reader poll to decide what our Seeker would seek. Let’s take a look at the results:
First place is the past — in the comments, many readers cited Vahid’s love of history, which would make a glimpse into the secret past almost irresistable. Now, the only question to answer is whether Vahid is also able to glean a vision of the present, as well. The custom move we’re using is an unmodified 2d6 roll — if he scores a 10+, two visions rather than one, will be granted. On a 6-, we’ll still receive one, but the hdour will also see Vahid:
Vahid triggers Commune with the Fate-Tree: 5+1 = 6, Miss
I cannot tell a lie — I was hoping for a miss here, a little bit. I think it’s much more interesting outcome if the hdour becomes aware that Vahid is beginning to work against him. So, we’ll set a scene for Vahid to receive a vision of the hdour’spast, and where the hdour sees him right back.
Housekeeping
Before we dive in, just a bit of housekeeping — as this is winging towards your inboxes today, I’ll be on a plane with my wife and small kiddos on the way to a long vacation with some friends. I’ll be on a fairly remote island with middling internet service, and I could use a bit of a breather, so I’ll be skipping next week’s episode. You’ll still receive an email from PTFO, however — I’ve written up some loose thoughts about what the future might hold for this project, and I’m curious what y’all think.
Setting the Scene
We’ll open back in Vahid’s vision, under the boughs of the fate-tree. To see the past, he must descend down into the roots, and there he will find what he seeks:
The Fate-Tree, as imagined by a so-so AI artist.
Scene 10: Elsewhere
Vahid’s body begins to feel heavy1 — a center of gravity near his heart that feels like his chest might collapse. He feels himself sinking into the cold, mirror-still water, descending between the dark roots of the tree.
As he falls, the pressure grows, squeezing the air from his lungs and leaving his throat burning. The cold seems to sap the strength from his body and the certainty from his heart. Vahid thinks of his mother — how she was blameless in the strife between him and his father, and how if he dies here, so far from home, she would never know what became of him.
Vahid must resist the cold darkness the roots of the Fate-Tree, lest he be overwhelmed by regret. He steels himself physically against the crushing weight and tries to stay his course:
Vahid triggers Defy Danger with Constitution: 5+1+1 Constitution = 7, Weak Hit.
Vahid’s dealing in some big magic here, so for a weak hit we’ll hand out a serious consequence — a debility, Miserable, which causes disadvantage on and move using Constitution or Charisma. But he can still soldier on, with the help of his spirit-guide, awaiting him back in the ‘real’ world.
Through the dream-haze, he feels a warm hand on his forehead and hears Katrin’s whisper: “The past is heavy with regret. Do not let it overtake you. Think of why you have come here.” She pauses, and Vahid feels the warmth of her hand on his. “Soon, you will be too deep in the trance to hear me. Good luck, Seeker.”
Her voice fades into the darkness, and Vahid falls for what seems like days until he can remember little of where he is and why he has come.
Scene 11: A ruined hilltop fort overlooking the Steplands
For three days and three nights, they fled from the Heoling witch hunters through the twisting canyons and over the rocky cliffs of the Steplands. First on horseback, and when the horses died, on foot, hiding in caves and doubling back to leave false trails.
“Here is where our flight ends, one way or another,” the old man had said, his voice resigned. “Now climb while you still have the strength.”
And so they ascended the sheer, rocky hill and the ruins of the Old Masters that perched atop it and rested, waiting for their pursuers and the coming storm.
Now, Cirl waits, in the shade of a ruined archway, pale limestone overgrown by vines blossoming with white spring flowers. The old man stands away from him, at the cliff’s edge, looking out over the Steplands and watching the northern and western approaches for their pursuers.
“Will they come?” Cirl asks tentatively.
“They will, I think,” the old man growls. “If they are the hounds of Heol, the storm will not dissuade them.”
Cirl turns to the southern horizon. Louring there is a great wall of dark storm clouds and a thick grey curtain of rain, drawing ever closer, driven by the hot summer winds. “Such a storm it is,” he says, his voice heavy with reverence.
The old man turns to face the storm front and nods. “Those clouds are the raiment of an empress of the sky, boy. Close your eyes and listen for the spirit-tongue and you will hear her.”
Cirl closes his eyes, and opens himself to the unseen world, listening for the song of the storm.
Cirl triggers Spirit Tongue. Let’s take a look at the move’s text:
Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop
No roll needed — he can ask the GM “what spirits are active here?” and get an honest answer.
Cirl as a PC
Let’s talk about what’s going on here within the fiction and how that’s represented by the underlying game mechanics. Vahid is not observing this scene as a disembodied viewer — he is experiencing it as Cirl, the future hdour. To represent this in the context of the game, we can temporarily leave Vahid’s character sheet and take up Cirl’s instead. We’ll play the flashback as though it was a regular scene, letting it unfold based on the rolls we get, with an eye to maintaining continuity with what we’ve already established.
As a result, we have access to moves that Cirl has access to (and not Vahid’s, for now — though Vahid might reassert himself at a key moment). For our purposes, I’m picking moves from the Blessed playbook — it’s a mystical, priestly playbook that connects players to the spirit-world, as you can see from one of its move, Spirit Tongue, above. Since we don’t have a Blessed in the party, we can have a little fun and take their moves out for a spin in the context of this vision quest. In addition to Spirit Tongue, Cirl will have a few other moves — I picked Veil and Borrow Power when I was doing the GM prep to run this scene. We’ll detail them if and when they arise.
For stats, we’ll just use Vahid’s — that’s what I’d do at the table to keep things moving. Back to the fiction, with the answer to the question “what spirits are active here?”
Even though the storm is not yet upon them, Cirl can hear the spirit’s haunting song on the wind. It is like no spirit’s voice he has ever heard — terrifying power and unearthly beauty, keening over the Steplands as it races northwards. In its path, other spirits of the sky are entranced by the song, falling under the storm spirit’s sway and adding their strength to her own.
The old man bows his head in reverence, making the holy sign of Tor — two fingers slashing a thunderbolt shape in the air before him. “She is the Thousand-Year Storm — born once in a hundred generations, to rule in the heavens for a single day. If I die with her as my witness, I will meet the Crowmother with a proud heart,” the old man says, a sad smile creeping onto his face.
Cirl’s eyes sting with welling tears, and a fearful pit grows in his stomach as he thinks about the darkness awaiting him at the bronze tip of a Heoling spear. The old man always told him that in time, his fear of death would fade as the unseen world changed him, but it never came to pass.
“Once, when our people were kings, the tu’d was like a great spirit of the storm — we rode where the wind took us, falling upon our enemies like a thunderbolt. The Despots of Lygos, the Jarls of the Manmarches, the captains of the mountain holds — they paid us a golden treasure to turn our wrath away from them. Once I thought I would live to see those days come again, but it feels like a distant dream now.”
“Dreams can be made real, if the faithful fight for them,” Cirl replies. “You told me that.”
The old man nods, his face growing wearier. “I will fight. But you must live to fight another day, boy. Work your magic — bid the wind to hide you, and do not make a sound. If they take me, perhaps they will be satisfied.”
“No! I can hide you, too. Let them look for us; my magic can keep us both safe. I don’t know where I’ll go without you.”
“If they brave the storm and climb the hill, they will not stop until they find me. Neither wind nor breath can blow forever, boy. Now, do as I say.”
Cirl obeys, finding a shadowed spot in the lee of a great fallen column. He whispers to the wind spirits, growing stronger in the path of the mighty Thousand-Year Storm, and marks himself so they will hide him from searching eyes.
Cirl triggers Veil.
He marks himself with this ability, and if and when the Heolings search for him, he’ll have to roll. In the meantime, he’s hidden from the searchers.
They wait. First, the storm comes — the rains begin to fall, first heavy drops and then sheets, running in rivulets off the ruined stone eaves of the Old Masters’ ancient watchtower.
The Heolings follow shortly after the storm, ascending the hill’s rocky cliff face slowly, painstakingly, as the falling rain renders the narrow, twisting path slick and treacherous. There are nine of them, clad in pure white witch hunter’s cloaks, sodden in the rain but still bright. Their arms and armor are not iron, but bronze — the bane of The Things Below — and they fan out with grim purpose, surrounding the old man.
Their leader is of an age with Cirl’s teacher — his tattoos are faded, his skin is cracked leather, and his close-shorn hair is silver. He points his spear at their quarry and calls out a challenge.
“Karan of the Ash Pickers,” he shouts to be heard above the lashing rain. “You have meddled with the magic of the hated Old Masters, and practiced the forbidden arts of the hdour. We have come to exact vengeance for these crimes. Heol wills it!”
The old man scoffs. “The magics I wield are the birthright of the storm-folk, handed down to me by my mother, and to her from of old. I have never enslaved a spirit to my will. Your charges are lies, and you know this.”
“Yield your forbidden arcana to us, and perhaps we will let you live,” the witch hunter sneers. “The birthright of the storm-folk was forfeit when your false-crowned kings fell to the corruption of The Things Below.”
“My ancestors never fell.” The old man raises his chin defiantly. “And my arcana are beyond your reach, zealot.” In his hiding place, Cirl clutches his medicine bag tightly, holding the treasures his teacher entrusted him with — a carved wooden flute and a long string of bronze prayer beads.
At this point, at the gaming table, we’d reveal to Vahid’s player a pair of the hdour’s magic items — a string of prayer beads that grant him incredible fortitude and a flute that allows him to conjure a wind spirit that can relay messages across great distances. For the sake of brevity, I won’t show the arcana cards here — we’ll look more deeply at them if they come up again.
Revealing these arcana is a way to give Vahid’s player another piece of what he’s looking for — information about his rival and his capabilities.
“Enough,” the leader spits. “Pieric, Samzun, Pol. Take him alive.” He turns and mutters under his breath to his lieutenants. Cirl strains to hear what passes between them. “Find the apprentice,” he growls.
Three witch hunters surround Karan, circling him in the pouring rain, spears and adze drawn. They make short work of him — one, with a spear, keeps him off balance and retreating, while the others harry him with the blunted ends of their adze, beating him into quick submission. The grim old man makes no sound as the Heoling zealots do their bloody work. Above, the Thousand-Year Storm thunders, lightning flashing on the horizon, all around the tall hilltop.
Cirl watches from his hiding place as the Heolings search the ruin.
Here, the Heolings are testing the strength of Cirl’s magic.
The Heolings can’t find him. But this witch hunter is not going to be deterred — this is a pretty dramatic moment, so I feel comfortable as a GM taking initiative back and making another move against Cirl.
Each time the hunters draw close to Cirl’s hiding place, a gust of wind or a lash of rain seems to guide them away. The storm is overhead now — he can hear the mighty spirit, her song resonant and powerful, punctuated by flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.
With a snarl of frustration, the witch hunter draws a wickedly curved bronze knife and gestures to his warriors, who haul the bruised and bloodied old man to his feet. He presses the blade to the teacher’s throat, and the rain running down the old man’s neck is tinged by a thin stream of red.
“Look who is under my knife, apprentice!” He shouts to be heard over the rain and wind. “Come out, and your master may yet live — we want the treasures he entrusted you with. They are forbidden by the laws of the tu’d!”
Cirl shuts his eyes and stays silent. The Heoling leader continues. “Come out, or I will open his throat and give his blood to the earth. And we will still find you!”
Fear gnaws at his heart — terror of the Heoling’s spears, if they found him, and the uncertainty of where he might go without the old man to guide him. The young spirit-talker whispers a prayer to the storm above — in vain, he knows, for spirits of the sky are too lordly and proud to listen to the words of mortals.
But the Thousand-Year Storm answers him. She embraces Cirl with wind and rain, and the wind whispers in his ear.
“I have glimpsed the darkness beyond the Last Door through mortal eyes, and I too am afraid. Already, I feel my breath stilling and the thunder of my heart slowing. Cruel nature decrees I live only a day and a night before my storm goes quiet for another age.”
Cirl is dumbstruck, and the spirit continues. “Promise me, mortal. I will deliver you and your master from your enemies, and you will deliver me from death.”
“How might a spirit be saved from death?” Cirl whispers.
“I will show you,” the spirit’s wind whispers, fear creeping into her voice. “Please — there is little time.”
Cirl nods in a silent acceptance. The wind rises from a whisper to a roar. “It is done. Stand beneath the open sky, then, and receive my power!”
Cirl steps forth, letting his veil fall and opening himself to the spirit. The Heolings spot him and call out a warning, moving to surround him with weapons drawn. Cirl barely notices their approach. A buzzing, electric giddiness has replaced the fearful pit in his stomach. He can feel the hair on his arms standing up, and the sharp tang of ozone clings in his nostrils. He can feel the spirit within him burning beneath his skin.
The Heoling’s leader steps forward with a haughty glare. “Take him. He can watch his master die.” His warriors move forward, only to be met with the fires of heaven.
Cirl is using another move from the Blessed playbook here:
In this case, we have to write a move for the Thousand-Year Storm, since it is loaning its power to Cirl. We’ll envision something ridiculously powerful, as befits a storm-spirit that’s only born once every many generations — something like: “Unleash a destructive blast of lightning, thunder and wind.”
He unleashes a storm on the Heolings, and he still has gas in the tank to do it again!
Back to the action:
There is a deafeningly loud clap of thunder, a blinding flash of pure white light, and then everything seems silent. Surrounding Cirl is a trio of bodies, twisted and burnt beyond recognition, smoke still rising from their blackened forms.
Motion draws Cirl’s eyes up, and he sees another Heoling, borne aloft in the wind and rain, only to be flung off the clifftop ruin and to the canyon a hundred feet below. His mouth is open, emitting a soundless scream as he falls. The storm is harrowing the witch hunters all around him, driving them screaming off the cliffs or blasting them with thunderbolts from the dark clouds above.
The Heoling’s leader is thrown aside by an explosive thunderclap, scattering limestone and sodden earth in all directions. The old man is upon him instantly, snatching up the bronze dagger from where it had fallen and driving it towards his tormentor’s heart. Cirl watches as the zealot struggles valiantly, but the old man’s blade finds its mark, and when he rises, his hands are wet with blood.
Above, the storm is breaking. The old man looks up, his face growing grave. “What happened, boy?” he growls. “Where is the spirit? What have you done?”
Cirl tries to reply, but his throat is raw and cracked. The spirit is still in him, and agonizing black burns are beginning to rise on the flesh of his arm, branching like lightning strikes. He falls to his knees, and his teacher rushes to his side. “We do not have much time. The spirit is within you, and your mortal shell cannot contain its glory. In time, it will kill you, and being bound to you will twist it into something unnatural. Can you walk?”
Just as quickly as he fell to his knees, Cirl rises back to his feet, light as air. He can feel lightning crackling in his heart, the storm’s wind filling his lungs with powerful breath. His mentor’s face is lined with concern, but the old man shakes his head, putting his fear aside, and gestures for Cirl to follow. “I know a place where we can put this right, and then we need never speak of it again. Come.”
Scene 12: A strange cave
They descend the hilltop ruin and find the Heoling’s horses tethered where their hunters began their ascent. They choose the best of them and ride into the cool, clear night — the ground is wet, and the air smells like rain, but there is no other sign of the great storm that just passed.
The old man leads them to the yawning mouth of a limestone cavern. Digging through the Heoling’s saddlebags, he finds a bronze lantern, lights it, and leads them into the darkness through a twisting maze of limestone tunnels.
At the end of this path is an underground plaza, tiled with heavy limestone blocks. At the cardinal directions of the chamber, there are four raised platforms, each topped by a large, jagged formation of white quartz. One is shot through with black veins of corruption, another is shattered and crumbling, and two are pristine.
While they have ridden, the sharp high of sharing his body with the mighty storm spirit has blunted, and Cirl’s heart feels exhausted, each beat heavy and ponderous. The old man leads him towards the nearest dais and guides his hands onto the cool, smooth, pale crystal.
“The Old Masters built these to bind and imprison their spirit-slaves. The magic lingers, and it can draw the Thousand-Year Storm from your body.”
Cirl shakes his head weakly, but the old man pays him no mind. He chants in the spirit speech, driving the proud storm spirit from Cirl’s body into the crystalline prison. Bereft of the spirit’s power, a terrible emptiness fills him. Under his hands, the pure white quartz is now shot through with jagged blue and white streaks and clouds of dark grey, pulsing and moving slowly.
The old man holds his hand out. “Give me your adze, and leave this place by the path we came.”
“What will you do?”
“I will shatter the crystal, and release the Thousand-Year Storm to a state of nature. There, it will diminish and disappear, to be reborn again. Perhaps when the storm-folk are kings again,” he says, smiling sadly. “But the storm may be furious when released. That is why you must leave. Await me outside the cave for a few hours, no more.”
“No.” Cirl stands, blocking the old man’s path to the crystal. “While she is bound within the crystal, she will not diminish. And she does not wish to die.”
The old man’s face falls. “What did you say?”
“Bound to me, she can live many lifetimes. And together, we reclaim our peoples’ birthright. A kingship greater than the sorcerer-kings of old.”
“Come to your senses,” the old man growls. “It is not natural, Cirl. Humans and spirits are not meant to share one flesh. You will destroy one another.”
Cirl draws his adze from his belt, holding it low at his side. “No, it need not be so. There is a way my flesh can be made ready, she says. A work of the greatest of the Old Masters, the last of the Tempest Lords.” Cirl cocks his head, hearing the spirit’s whisper still.
“Give me your adze, Cirl.” The old man holds his hand out, his voice is pleading.
“No.” Cirl meets his old mentor’s eyes.
“Hdour,” the old man hisses. He lunges at Cirl, the witch hunter’s bronze knife lashing out, and the young sorcerer raises his adze to strike.
We won’t belabor this combat — the old man is wounded already, so this strike kills him.
He takes Cirl by surprise and slashes through his pupil’s rain-sodden deel robe, inflicting a shallow wound, but the old man is weak from fighting the Heolings. Cirl fights with reckless abandon, beating down his teacher’s guard with the heavy-bladed adze and then dealing the final, bloody blow. When the deed is done, he lets the adze clatter to the pale stone floor in a spreading pool of red blood.
The lantern light flickers. Cirl stares down into the still pool of blood, and an unfamiliar figure is reflected back at him: Aristocratic Lygosi features and dark skin, with a glowing third eye of white light on his forehead, his face framed by a high-collared robe of sky-blue wool.
The sight of his own face jolts Vahid back to himself, and he meets the sorcerer’s eyes, his memories flooding back into his mind as though he is awakening from a deep and dreamless slumber.
The hdour studies Vahid intently. He is years younger than Vahid remembers from their brief meeting at the strange makerglass obelisk, a week ago, and his eyes are sharp and curious as they measure the scholar.
“One last gift from my old teacher,” the hdour says, an ironic half-smile on his face. “A vision of our ungiven future.”
“Impossible,” Vahid breathes. “You had a vision of me all these years ago?”
The cave falls away, and Vahid and Cirl are left alone in a shadowed, empty place. The sorcerer now appears as he did in the makerglass obelisk a week ago — robed in a long, voluminous, grey Maker’s cloak, his bare chest crisscrossed with branching black scars, the legacy of his union with the Thousand-Year Storm.
“Yes. That is how I first knew to send my riders to search for you on the Black Road, on your journey to Stonetop. The storm whispered to me of you and the regalia you carry. It is the key to our destiny.”
“Your destiny? To gather the storm-folk to your banner and put the Lygos and the north under your boot?”
“Not just my destiny, but yours as well. The Azure Hand was meant for this great purpose: To bind the storm’s power into sinew and flesh. Beneath your adopted home is a powerful arcanum and the staff you carry is its key. It turned the warriors of the storm hill into peerless beings of wind and lightning. Indrasduthir herself, the last of the Tempest Lords, used it to bind the Thousand-Year Storm to her.”
“How could you possibly know this? It is not written in any histories I have read!”
“The storm told me. When we became one, her memories of past lives became my own, and her destiny became mine. Who are you to stand in the way of our fate?”
“The Makers’ works ought to be used to heal the sick and feed the hungry — to mend what is broken. Not to give tyrants the power to rule.”
“I have no desire to rule. A king of the tu’d is not meant for a throne. My riders will range like an endless storm, and in our wake, you will lord over what we conquer however you see fit.”
Vahid pauses for a moment, taken aback by the grandiosity of the offer, then his eyes narrow in suspicion. He brings his awareness to his third eye, sensing for the hdour’s thoughts in this strange, in-between place.
Now that Vahid is back in possession of himself (so to speak), he has access to his own character sheet and moves, so he’ll take this chance to try to read the hdour’s thoughts using his third eye.
Vahid triggers Seek Insight using his third eye: 5+2+1 Wisdom = 8, Weak Hit.
Vahid gets to ask one question, and his mind-reading minor arcanum allows him to ask “Are they lying or trying to mislead?” We’ll deliver the answer in the fiction:
“No — you lie. The storm does not share dominion,” Vahid says with finality.
Cirl’s inviting smile falls, replaced by a contemptuous sneer. “Always remember, Vahid, that I offered you peace.”
With that, the hdour vanishes and Vahid awakens with a gasp, drenched in a cold sweat. In front of him, he sees Katrin’s serene face, anxiously awaiting his return. “Welcome back, Seeker,” she whispers. “You have much to tell me, I think.”
We’ll close here. Next episode (which will be in the first week of July) will hopefully finish up Session 7. We’ll tie up some loose ends with Anwen and Kirs, and we’ll set up Session 8, which will cover the spearmoot.
Thanks as always for reading, and I hope y’all are excited for more when I get back from vacation. Until next time!
In last episode’s comments, a few readers pointed out that Vahid’s affinity for history might make the idea of seeing the past irresistible. I decided to represent here that he’s not consciously making a choice — his connection to the past pulls him down into the roots of the Fate-Tree, revealing the past to him.
I’m loving how it’s the hdour-hunting itself that led to Cirl turning from spirit-talker into hdour (and also blowing up all the hunters). Backfire and a self-fulfilling prophecy, all in one neat package.
So good! Enjoy your break and now that if you ever write a book I'll be right there at preorder!
I’m loving how it’s the hdour-hunting itself that led to Cirl turning from spirit-talker into hdour (and also blowing up all the hunters). Backfire and a self-fulfilling prophecy, all in one neat package.