HEROES
Zuva’Sai
Korallian
Hydromancer / Telepath
Zuva’Sai lives in the fiercely competitive underwater society of Vann’ti Marshakr. The city, like all of the Thalassocracy of Zheebul, is driven by profit and a strict loyalty to the wealthy Creators. Althought Zuva’Sai’s telepathic skills set him apart, he works censoring foreign texts, one of the lowest ranking jobs a truthgiver can have. When he finds out about the mythical Staff of Bekora, he realizes it could grant him the power to become rich himself. Or should he instead use it to set his people free from the tyranny of the Creators? Has his whole society been based on lies that he himself has labored to spread?
Now that he has discovered the first piece of the Staff, he is pursued by the psionic secret police who want to take it to Pezana, the Creator Zuva’Sai was working for. Looking for the other pieces will not be easy…
Venia
Quothian
Assassin / Witch
The secluded quothians worship their dead grandmothers in the nocturnal woodland realm of Heartwood where they are tasked with keeping the demons of the Breach at bay. Women spin cobweb into fine silk that is used for making magical scrolls and the finest clothes, while male quothians are used as slave soldiers or tasked with menial labor. The dead grandmothers don’t always agree on what is best. Venia gets a special quest from one of her ancestors. She must break into the mausoleum, steal her grandmother’s beaked skull, and carry it to the Vortex, a magical maelstrom connecting Agemonia to the Breach. That is the only way to save Heartwood!
But with the constant whispers of the spirit in the skull, will she have the strength of will to remain in control of her own mind? Can she even be sure it is her benevolent grandmother in the skull, or is it possible she is bonded to a demon?
Torrax
Agurian
Guardian / Geomancer
The Agurians hold much wisdom lost to the other peoples of Agemonia. Deathless and ungrowing, they live, carve their memories in their stone flesh, sleep for aeons, then wake up and live again. The runes in their skin remind them of their past. But Torrax’s runes have been smoothed out, and he does not know who he is. When his mentors are killed for the magical crystals that grow in their backs, he sets on a journey to confront the truth of his earlier life. This secret lies in the lost agurian city of Lok Torr, which only he can find. Building a powerful weapon from his own body is one way to reclaim his identity. But is he ready to remember who he really was before? Is he doomed to repeat the mistakes of his forgotten past? Or does he have the ability to change and correct the evil he has committed? These choices await him in Lok Torr…
Matajam
Pattangan
Ranger / Shaman
In his youth, Matajam was a prime example of the Pattangan scout: all four arms worked seamlessly with bow, knife, and the forest. He hunted, gathered herbs, and sacrificed to the totems. As an adult he started a family and got a job, becoming a middle manager in the Amethyst Order’s forestry operations, overseeing the felling of the trees he once climbed. The spreading fungal plague would destroy the Clacker Jungle anyway, he told himself. He put down his loincloth and knife, and donned the robes of a civilized southerner. He was moderately successful, but constantly unhappy. That was when Matajam was visited by the spirit animal, nalam, who called him to a shamanic quest of epic proportions. Matajam bid his family farewell, put on his traveling clothes once again, honed his old knife, and restrung his bow. Instead of destroying the Clacker Jungle, his quest is now to save it from demons and the fungal plague.
Jonai
Unknown
Blademaster / Aoxhunter
Jonai grew up among poor nihteegri fisherfolk in Ambergate. But she is not a nihteegri herself. In fact, no one knows what she is or where she came from. Only that she seems to have some special connection to the magical forces of aiun and aox. Growing up, a blind man taught her to fight with almost any weapon on Agemonia. He would have wanted her to dedicate her life to fighting demons, but for Jonai it was more important to save her girlfriend and neighborhood from the crime lord benefiting off their misery. She disguised herself as a shadowy avenger who fought crime with her powers. Little did she know this would lead her to discovering mystical aiun powers which manifest as a glowing cape and helmet. But will she fulfill her mentor’s wish, or continue as a crimefighter?
Lunara
Nihteegri
Knight / Paladin
Under the stars, House Bryndelion tries to stay honorable in the web of deceit that is the Republic of Benem. Based in Orrery Hill, the house is known for its powerful magi and wise cosmographers, but Lunara Bryndelion is a knight in charge of their armies. Her mother rules the family, and her two elder sisters both have powerful marriages to further them in their careers as heirs. When Star Lunara refuses to take part in the plots of rival houses, she returns to Orrery Hill to find her mother murdered, and herself framed as the culprit. She will lose her head and tail if she is captured, so she has no choice but to make her escape.
Now she is an outlaw, looking for her ancestral guivrenscale shield, which may be enough to prove her innocence. But having lived her whole life among the sheltered nobility, she has a hard time getting used to the life of a poor, wandering warrior.
Drenosh
Ignisaur
Marauder / Pyroblade
The ignisaurs of the Megeian Empire worship fire and the sun. Drenosh is a scion of the proud noble house of Eight-Songs, and was preparing for the skin shedding ceremony in the church of the Burning Sun in Megeia’s capital city Kruesol. Genderless, like all young ignisaurs, Drenosh was supposed to choose whether to become a male – a soldier or a merchant, or a female – a priest or a leader. Drenosh decided not to choose, making them an outcast, but also saving them from the assassinations that befell the rest of the family. The last of their house, they fled Kruesol and found refuge working as an Amethyst Order mercenary in Copperton. There they turned on their employers to gain knowledge on how the house of Eight-Songs was betrayed and murdered by Drenosh’s former friend Shodan Four-Dawns. Now, both the Amethyst Order and the house of Four-Dawns are looking to kill Drenosh, as they seek bloody vengeance.
XIR
Xi-noq
Mystic / Sentinel
Like all xi-noq, Xir was a part of a triad, who emerged together from their cocoons, grew up together, worked together, and were meant to eventually wither together. But when the Megeian Empire attacked their ages-old jungle cities and the xi-noq had to evacuate into the Breach, the evil power of aox managed to take hold.
Xir’s triad consisted of itself, the vibrant Woa, and the melancholy Shan, who seemed to be suffering from aox. To cure it, the triad sailed into the Breach to look for a soul lotus with power over aox. Upon finding it, Woa revealing itself to be the corrupted one. It took the flower and Shan, and left Xir for dead.
Finding a small offshoot of the soul lotus, Xir managed to nurse itself back to health, follow Woa through the Breach, and finally emerge in the strange Republic of Benem. But how could Xir fight Woa when all it wants is to belong in a triad again?
Garuk
Boryoti
Cryomancer / Ravager
The boryoti follow the virtues and avoid the sins taught by the Church of the Reformed Hearth. But not even the sins of greed and impatience are so abhorred as is that of the shapeshifting curse.
Garuk’s papa was a cryomancer who taught him how to manipulate ice and coldness with magic, how to be kind and smart. But papa was killed by the cursed Dlavuk of Nowhere, an abomination. Young Garuk went after Dlavuk and confronted him, but turned into an abomination himself. He was also cursed!
Ever since then Garuk has striven to suppress his monstrous side and to master the art of cryomancy. Dlavuk claims to be his real papa but that lie is clearly just another one of his many sins. Garuk is determined to find a cure to the curse that afflicts them both.
