This is a short scene where you play two local characters not directly related to the PCs or Rosencliff.

Through their interaction, you can develop your PC's back story from a second person perspective. What the characters discuss in this scene doesn't have to be the truth, it could be embellished, or pure lies, but then explore why they say such things and that itself will be a story that develops your PC.

Have fun with it. Perhaps this scene is also told by a third party, so even it isn't 100% reliable? (Much like the Prologue scenes.)

When you're ready, also decide a name for this game topic, and I will change it.

This scene is for Nestaron and Seyja.

Suggestion: Perhaps two peasant travellers meeting at a crossroads and sharing stories around the campfire about things that had happened and people they'd met on the road.

Squatting on his haunches, the middle-aged man with dark hair and an olive complexion leaned forward and fed another stick to the fire. Then he sat back and continued his talk.

"No... I had gone ahead, scouting out the nearby towns for possible..." he paused, shook his head and made a hand-waffling action, "opportunities... meanwhile the rest of my clan, along with a barbarian woman who'd been traveling with us, were to make camp in the hills above the river."

"When I made my way back up into the hills, there were signs that many and I mean many orcs had moved through there and, when I found the camp..." he paused and shook his head again.

"All my people were dead and the barbarian woman was gone."

He stared out into the darkness and was quiet for a long moment.

"I was getting to like her. Now... I wonder."

The aged woman chewed contemplatively on the rabbit they were sharing, her eyes reflecting the firelight as she stared into it. She heard the man's tale out and then bit down on a bone, cracking it so she could suck out the marrow.

"That's not a nice tale there at all. Do ye think she might have joined up with 'em?"

She discarded the bone and took a swig from a jar filled with herbs and hot water, wiping her greasy hands on the heavy breeches she wore. He hair was grey and somewhat bound back, though wisps escaped here and there. Her skin was lined and weathered like the bark an old oak, but her eyes when engaged were quick and sharp.

His eyes narrowed for a long moment and then he shook his head.

"Can't see it. She hated orcs."

The gypsy shrugged.

"At least she said she did. There were some dead orcs there, too."

He looked around as if afraid someone might be listening and, when he spoke again, his voice was lowered, cautious.

"I heard her talking one night to my mother. Just heard part of it, but it was about the Orc Lord."

Her eyes snapped to his face, and the herb-woman reached for some of the tubers they'd baked in the coals, cutting them open with a very sharp little knife she carried at her waist.

"Them's deep waters there. Not fer the likes of us"

She watched the steam rising from the food in front of her, as if she could discern patterns in the designs it made in the firelight.

"So mebbe she fought them and followed after, then. Sounds like a capable lass she does, and if she had a mad on fer orcs well... I'd not like to be in their shoes when next they camped fer the night."

"I know..." he said slowly, dragging out the two syllables. "I was surprised she would even say his name out loud."

"She was a real tough woman, that's for sure."

He stirred the coals and added another stick to the fire, not that it needed it, but just to give him hands something to do.

"So I buried my mother and as many of the others as I could stomach," he said, looking down at his blistered palms. "Then I just had to leave... had to go... somewhere."

The half-smile on his face was bitter-sweet at best.

"So... enough about me. What about you?"

"I've just come from me yearly trip to the Cathedral, where the Priestess is and all, and they been talking about this young fellow and some vision he had. Seems like half think he's the answer to a vague prophecy and the rest think they're wrong, and since he ducked out before any of 'em could get their hands on him, all they can do is argue about it."

She chuckled drily, and shoveled her little pile of bones into the fire.

"Guilty pleasure maybe, but it does me soul good to see them all a flutter with their lily-white hands in the air, half fearing their world might actually change."

He sat back on his haunches, cocking his head slightly to one side, listening, glad to have something to think about other than his own recent troubles.

"What kinda prophecy? One about the Priestess?"

"Aye, in a way. There's this very sketchy prophecy which maybe or maybe not says that this vision of his makes him a future avatar, or consort, or even a nemesis of the Priestess."

Her look was very skeptical.

"Anyways, this set him apart from the others, seein's how some were jealous and some wanted to start cozyin' up to him just in case. I hear tell he wasn't much happy with either so he asked to leave. They was all a-callin him Cilmion, what apparently means 'selected or appointed' or somethin', and some said it nice and some said it nasty. I can see why he wanted to leave."

"Uh-huh," he said, frowning and again stirring the fire, worrying over what the woman had told him.

"Wish my mother was here... she was good at interpreting dreams and prophecies and such."

"So Cilmion wasn't his name? Just what they were calling him because of the prophecy. What was his name?"

"Nestaron somethin'-or-other. Can't wrap my mind or my tongue around them elvish names. But he's only half. Wood-Elf I'd say from the looks of him. Looks aren't anythin special. Got pale skin, an' blue eyes. But there's this odd, unearthly quality you notice after a few minutes. It's something in his eyes maybe, or the way he holds his head when he's talking. He looks at things a little too long maybe? I don't know, but it's unsettling for some."

She took a handful of herbs out of her pouch and began grinding them down to a powder with a small mortar and pestle.

"They say he's as good with herbs as he is with the healing magics an' all, an' I seen him chatting up some of the High Druid's folk, an' then one of em gave him something. Maybe a message to deliver or somethin', so I figure he's got some history with them."

"Oh, so he's a cleric-type?" he asked, nodding slightly, but frowning a bit, also.

"I never had much doins' with elf-types," he said and then grinned crookedly. "And especially not with High Druids and such."

"They don't tend to be over-trustful with us gypsy folk."

He sat back on his haunches and watched her work with the herbs.

"My Ma was a good'un with such as that."

The woman nodded absently, focusing on what she was doing.

"Any more tales of yer brawny lass then?"

The man changed positions to relieve, perhaps, a cramp in his leg.

"She carried a greataxe she set great store by. Always oiling and cleaning and whetting the edge of the blade," he said, frowning off into the dark.

"But that didn't seem so... unusual. Sometimes she'd sit there all by herself and, well, talk to it almost."

He shrugged, turned back to the old lady and smiled a bit crookedly and then shrugged.

"I think she called it... Planina Moc."

[Nice. Atmospheric. Will we learn a bit more about Seyja's original people? How about Nestaron's involvement with the revolt on Meniscus?]

[OOC: I was thinking about that... trying to come up with something about her people that I liked.]

[Nestaron's involvement with the revolt was pretty boring, but maybe the Crusader bit...]

The night was growing darker and more than a little chilly and he fed the fire a bit more.

"Her people, she said, were great travelers - perhaps a little like my own clan - but they tended to stay mostly in the mountains and highlands and avoided big cities and highly populated areas."

He rubbed his hands together, luxuriating in the increased heat from the campfire.

"I think she left them for her own people's safety. Said there was danger 'n evil stalking her."

"If the Orc Lord were involved, belike she was right in that! I'd bet she wouldn't be comfy in cities or even big towns then."

The herbs ground to a fine dust, the woman carefully wet it aside, put everything else away, and then took a small amount of it on her long fingernail and inhaled it.

"Ah, that's the stuff. Care for some? Make ye sleep like a babe it will."

She took another bit in the other nostril and stared into the darkness outside the fire's circle, her eyes slightly dilated.

"Poor lass, she's lost her kin just as much as you have, if she is afraid to be going back to them. How old is she then?"

He stared at the old woman for a long moment and then shrugged and nodded. What did he have to lose, he thought and accepted the dosage of herbs she offered.

"Young... younger than I am, anyway." He thought for a moment.

"I'd say around twenty years old."

The mixture did as advertised, making him a bit drowsy and relaxing his muscles. She nodded sleepily.

"About the same as when that halfer first caught the Crusader's eye. Seems he believes the Crusader an' the demons be essentially the same in the end. If it were the Dark Gods what were invading, an' a Demon Prince standing up to them, he figures the roles'd simply be reversed. Seein's how he thinks the Crusader is just as big a threat as the demons, every once in a while he gets all heated up an' starts a-rantin' about it. I heard some tell as how his opinion be given heed in certain circles, how the Crusader's minions have noticed an' put a black mark on his name. He has to always be on the look out for them over his shoulder nowadays."

She chuckled, gathering her sleeping roll up and laying it out.

"The fire of youth, eh?"

He struggled to follow the old lady's exposition and only partially succeeded as the soporific mixture of herbs began to take its effect on him.

"Halfer? Oh, you mean the cleric... the one you were talking about before," he said as he stretched and yawned.

"If he's mixed up with the Crusader and demons, he might be in near as much trouble as she does... Seyja, I mean."

He blinked several times and stretched again.

"Oh... say, we haven't introduced ourselves. I am Georgy Luko."

She mumbled a bit, unintelligibly, and then cleared her throat and repeated herself.

"Folks just call me Maddy, sometimes Mad Maddy, but me mother named me Maude."

The woman blinked owlishly at the dying fire.

"Oh aye, they're both in for a world of trouble, belike..."

Georgy


Nodding and yawning, Georgy pulled his colorful, if threadbare, cloak around him and curled up close to the fire.

"Aye, don't we all have our troubles, Maddy."

Moments later he was snoring.

The roads of the Empire were dangerous, that much was for sure, and these two travellers shared a fire and stories, and more than that, they shared trust.

What of the figures in their tales? Would this barbarian woman and half-elf cleric be as fortunate, to find companions on the road, to find that they could be trusted?

From the sounds of it, they'd need all the help they could get.