Heralds of Valdemar/Recap: Difference between revisions

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== The Mage Wars ==

 

=== The Black Gryphon ===

Unfortunately, the war is going badly for Urtho's forces, and Ma'ar has reached striking distance of his fortress. This is largely due to one of Urtho's generals [[Face Heel Turn|betraying]] him to Ma'ar, deliberately losing battles and even managing to dose Urtho with a slow-acting but invariably lethal poison. The energy in Urtho's magic artifacts will be released [[No Ontological Inertia|when he dies]], destroying his citadel and everything nearby. The war is lost, and Urtho clings to life as long as possible while his people evacuate through his [[Cool Gate|Gates]]. Skandranon, furious at the loss of Urtho, takes a secret Gate into the heart of Ma'ar's citadel and uses an [[Anti-Magic]] device, causing Ma'ar's magic items to explode in the same manner as Urtho's.

 

 

=== The White Gryphon ===

There he finds a whole new world opening before his eyes. Far from being beaten into submission as he fears, he finds that Haven is far more liberal than his father's household. Unfortunately, he's withdrawn himself behind a wall of apathy to deal with pain both suffered and anticipated. However, he also meets a strangely beautiful Herald-Mage trainee named Tylendel, who tries to get him to open up. It takes the crushing of his dreams of being a Bard for Vanyel to break through into the startling realization that the idea his father had been keeping from him is that he is gay. Tylendel becomes his love and his lover... and, they come to realize, his [[Mindlink Mates|lifebond]]. Life improves dramatically for Vanyel; although he must still hide his relationship with Tylendel from his father, he starts enjoying life for perhaps the first time and even starts to expand his moral horizons -- so preoccupied has he been with his own plight that the unselfish altruism of the Heralds is a complete mystery.

 

 

All of this reverberates through the lifebond to affect Vanyel as well -- particularly the Gate energies, which blast open his latent Gifts, revealing him as a powerful mage and [[The Empath|empath]]. He is quickly Chosen by a Companion, but unable to bear the combination of the loss of Tylendel and the trauma of his new powers, he attempts suicide. Desperate, Savil takes him to the mystical Hawkbrothers in the hopes that they will have the knowledge to heal Vanyel's body, mind, and soul.

 

=== Brightly Burning ===

 

== Vows and Honor ==

The village of Errold's Grove has been on the decline since the mage storms, due to the increased number of dangerous creatures in the Pelagiris forest. Only Darian's parents continue to brave the forest, making a good living as trappers -- until they vanish during the tail end of the mage storms. Darian is apprenticed to the villager's resident wizard and healer, Justyn -- a former mercenary whose once-useful magical power has been reduced to virtually nothing by a blow to the head taken during the war with Hardorn.

 

 

Darian flees beck into the woods, but runs into a barbarian patrol. He is rescued by the Hawkbrother scout Snowfire, and taken back to the Hawkbrother encampment. There he meets Starfall (an Adept-class mage and leader of the expedition), Nightwind (a trondi'irn -- a specialist in caring for intelligent non-humans), Kelvren (a gryphon, Nightwind's main responsibility), Ayshen (lead hertasi -- a race of small bipedal lizards that act as support staff), and Tyrsell (head dyheli, which are essentially psychic antelopes) among others. This particular group is part of a larger Hawkbrother effort to control the flow of magic after the mage storms, ensuring a supply of magic energy for themselves and Valdemar, while simultaneously denying it to any potentially hostile mages.

=== Owlknight ===