Mon Nov 27 '23 Announcement
12 months ago
– Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 08:54:05 AM
Hello Gravediggers,
I've got some more fiction to share with you today, but first some facts! We've unlocked our 10th Stretch Goal and it's time to set up our next batch of targets!
ACHIEVED! - At $110,000 in Funding - Deathlord QCs
At $115,000 in Funding - VTT Token Pack
Digital assets will be created to support online play for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave, including key character and antagonist tokens from the book. This online asset pack will be added to the rewards list of all backers.
At $120,000 in Funding - New Soulsteel Artifacts
New Soulsteel artifacts will be written up and added to the Companion PDF.
They had taken the boy’s fingernails first. They didn’t stop when he told them he could get the money back with interest. By the fourth, he had told them about his secret cache of silver, set aside for finally escaping Nexus one day. By the fifth, he realized they didn’t care what he told them, and that he was going to die.
He awoke in the ruined temple, hazy with burning pain and the memories of cruel laughter. As he opened bleary eyes, he saw his own corpse, streaked with blood, pocked with bruises and wounds. His killers were there, frozen in time, etched with smiles of chilling satisfaction.
He was not alone in this frozen time. A vast figure clad in black armor draped with tarnished chains, stood in the temple’s entry, too large to have crossed its threshold. The figure’s masked face watched him with rapt attention.
“Well then, is it the old god of the temple, come at last to deliver me? Or are you come to ferry my soul away? Well, have at it, I’m not afraid of you!”
A lie. Even outside his flesh, the presence of the spirit caused the boy to shiver. Long familiarity with danger told him that he was in the presence of one of the world’s true terrors.
The figure spoke, voice reverberating in the darkness: “No god I, and no shepherd to your soul. I am here to recruit.”
“Recruit for what?”
“In a place beyond the world you know, a great war of my making is brewing. I seek lieutenants of uncommon talent to further my design.”
The boy barked a bitter laugh.
“I think you’ve made a mistake, lord. I’m nobody. See here, where my talents landed me.”
The boy felt the apparition’s attention shift momentarily to his dying body, then to the cruel tools and ghoulish faces of his killers.
“I do not make mistakes. You came from nothing but have taken much. Your name commands fear in the dark corners of this city. You are clever. Observant. An assiduous judge of character, and not afraid to get your hands dirty. In you, I see the potential for great things. This life has given you no opportunity to realize it, but I give you that opportunity now. I give you honor as a prince among the dead. I give you the respect of your few peers and the obedience of your lessers. I give you the loyalty of a general, if you give me the loyalty of a soldier.”
“Oh? And what, you’re going to write my name in the clouds while you’re at it?”
“No. Your name is to be forgotten with your mortal frailty and your former life, never to be remembered. That is the cost of greatness, vengeance, and survival.”
The figure reached down and extended a clawed hand. The boy flinched back before he recognized the gesture as a handshake.
The boy could sense the truth in the figure’s words, and the offer of true power before him. He looked down once more at his own body. He saw a dead boy and a wasted life — never living up to his ambition, thwarted by the world.
“Good.” he said, taking the freezing, metal-clad hand in his own. “I want to forget it.”
The terrifying figure inclined his spike-crowned head fractionally.
“Then stand in glory, my Chosen. My deathknight. Kill this chaff, then depart south, and seek me by my omens. When we meet, our work can begin in truth.”
The boy breathed in his Second Breath. He opened his eyes; a heartbeat later, his erstwhile captors began screaming. Their blood was a baptismal crust upon his hands when he finally knelt before his Deathlord at the Thousand, pledging himself as The One Who Walks Behind You.
***
The Voice That Speaks in Silence sat motionless upon his mount, a vast skeleton-serpent which framed him like a gruesome, writhing throne. From that vantage, he beheld them: the tomb-bodies of his dead gods, the Neverborn. Blood wept from his caste mark, tracing down his dark skin to the channels engraved in his silver half-mask. He forced himself to recall the patterns he had inscribed, the sacred geometry of their asymmetrical paths dividing and rejoining. They carried the blood over his unblinking left eye, which blazed darkly with his Essence, and to the right corner of his mouth, where laughter-prone lips were set in grim determination. He could almost hear it, after all this time…
Time. Its movement was fluid, turbulent, within the Labyrinth. In these tombs, it was a tortured skein, an unsolvable knot, each moment frozen in constant motion. Was this how the Neverborn felt, in the nightmare of their eternal unbeing? Or was he merely a stone that looked upon a mountain and thought itself the same?
Same. His pilgrimage through the Labyrinth was the same as walking Creation’s dragon lines in his youth, a simple ritual of endurance. Through rivers of teeth, fields of broken toys, knife-trees and Essence-snares, he walked, arriving here, where he began, where he had given up his name. What had they done with his name, these sleepers? A quirk of his usual humor touched his lips, the laugh-lines drinking of his flowing blood. Never-born, never-named, what use have you for our names?
Names. Mere sounds, symbols without significance — like the Whispers that intruded on his thoughts, tantalizing, daring him to interpret them. But that, he mused, was the trap. The mind built itself patterns from words, stars, entrails, dreams...But if he gave in to that impulse now, if he had the hubris to think that he, out of every soul that had ever died, could divine the true words of the corpse-gods...he'd end up like a nephwrack, preaching dross to a congregation of eager fools.
Fools. Only they listened overlong to the echoes of the Whispers. The Whispers break the mind, but the silence breaks the soul. In the great, yawning spaces between the echoes lurked a paradigm shift, “Perhaps...there is meaning!” becomes “Perhaps...there is no meaning!” As one of Death's Lawgivers, to dance upon on the knife's-edge of such distinctions was his chivalry.
Chivalry. It defined him: the very rhythm to which he danced. His fingers drummed idly on the broad skull of his throne-serpent, some nameless song so old he had forgotten where he learned it. Beneath the silence of the Labyrinth is the sound of the Whispers. Beneath the sound of the Whispers is the silence of despair. Beneath that...
His staring eyes blinked at last, focused on the fingers that tapped away of their own accord. He surged upright, his serpents lashing their tails in irritation, the crystals woven in his long hair chiming. For the second time, he favored the dead gods with a wide, triumphant grin.
Beneath that silence...there is another sound.
***
The Bleeding Lily Crowned in Shackles sat in an uncomfortable high-backed chair amid a ring of similarly inauspicious personages. Another hour stretched into infinity. She stared upwards into the gruesome vaulted ceiling and entertained her wandering mind by counting the bony joins where each buttress met the roof like the ribs of a great beast. As a Moonshadow, she oversaw the summit and bound any agreements the long-dead council might request.
Other deathknights shifted in their chairs, which were never meant to support the weight of physical bodies. Some were enforcers shipped to this summit alongside their snake-tongued courtiers as a show of strength.
A Dusk Caste that the Bleeding Lily recalled as the Kingeater lounged near her with one long leg carelessly slung across its carved arm. Every so often, her eyes flitted toward the Lily with just a hint of salacious intent. The Bleeding Lily did not return the looks — one lover under fraught circumstances was enough.
With that reminder, her daydream shifted to Meadow's warm touch and the full softness of her lips against her mouth and neck. The second this dusty specter called a recess, she planned to slip out of the shadowland and find her way to her shepherdess's field.
The next time she met the Lily’s eyes, though, the Dusk flashed a roguish wink. The Lily felt her cheeks flush and glared back. This provoked a burst of inappropriate laughter from the Kingeater, and then the awkward silence a council interrupted.
"Is something the matter?" the ghostly chairman asked.
"Nothing, your grace," the Kingeater said in an appealing, rough voice, "but I think the members of this assembly with flesh and blood may be growing tired. Perhaps we can resume at midnight."
The ghost considered her words and then nodded, albeit grudgingly. "We shall be adjourned, then."
The Lily wasted no time bolting from the chamber. She kept her head down to avoid unwanted conversations and focused on the motion of one boot in front of the other. She failed to notice the Kingeater crossing her path until they collided.
The Dusk seized a fistful of her blouse and pulled her uncomfortably close. She smiled mercilessly at the Lily with pointed teeth grazing her painted bottom lip. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
The Lily pushed against the solidness of the Kingeater's chest and her silver and black jacquard vest to force space between them. "None of your business. I need to stretch my legs."
The Kingeater’s wicked smirk widened into a wolfish grin. "Which is it? An unbelievable excuse or none of my business?"
"Both. Go away." The Lily slapped away her hand again.
"We could stretch together," the Kingeater said with a lascivious wink. "C'mon. Let's have a bit of fun."
The Lily decided whether to be disgusted or aroused and settled on a mix of both. "No. Don't you have something better to do?"
The Kingeater eyed her with brutal scrutiny. "You have someone else, then, who you're rushing off to meet." She paced a dangerous circle around the Bleeding Lily. "Let me guess... Some mortal you're keeping your identity from? How dreadfully romantic."
The Lily flushed. "No, nothing like—"
The cold kiss of metal pressed against her throat as the Kingeater blocked her passage with knife in hand. "You're a lovestruck fool, the Bleeding Lily Crowned in Shackles. That kind of romance isn’t for us.”
“I disagree,” the Lily said. Dark Essence circulated through her body and she moved, faster than thought, past the Kingeater. Without looking back, she sprinted toward the sliver of daylight winking through the exit.
“A hunt, is it?” The Kingeater’s cruel laughter echoed down the hallway. “I’ll catch you both, then.”
The Lily heard the rush of power and heavy footfalls catching up behind her. She knew she was no match for a Dusk Caste in single combat, but she would never lead this wolf to her Meadow.
***
The shepherdess watched the sun dip toward the horizon and waited until the moon rose high. Knowing her lover would not appear tonight, Meadow stood and returned home.
Sun Nov 26 '23 Announcement
12 months ago
– Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 09:27:27 AM
Hello Gravediggers,
Two quick bits before I get to our trio of Charms preview.
First up, now that we've had a chance to look at Chapters 4+5, which cover Abyssal Character Creation (see Update #9 if you haven't already checked that out!), you can have some bonus fun listening to the latest Onyx Pathcast!
The Pathcast comes together to make an Abyssal character! Check it out!
And Stretch Goals! We're *so close* to unlocking our next Stretch Goal, so please continue to spread the word and see if other Exalted fans want to join in!
At $110,000 in Funding - Deathlord QCs
Two Deathlords will be written up with Quick Character stats and added to the Companion PDF.
At $115,000 in Funding - VTT Token Pack
Digital assets will be created to support online play for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave, including key character and antagonist tokens from the book. This online asset pack will be added to the rewards list of all backers.
As mentioned previously, we'll be dividing our MASSIVE Charms chapter into three sections for backer review. You'll be able to download these sections over the next few weeks, starting with Manuscript Preview #4 coming on Tuesday.
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Abyssals Draft Manuscript Preview 4 – Charms: Archery to Investigation – coming Nov 28
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Abyssals Draft Manuscript Preview 5 – Charms: Larceny to Presence – coming Dec 2
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Abyssals Draft Manuscript Preview 6 – Charms: Resistance to War– coming Dec 6
But who wants to wait? Let's have a sneak peek at a trio of Charms from Manuscript Preview #4, and then a look ahead to one charm from Manuscript Preview #5 to keep us excited through the middle part of this campaign! Let's get to it...
Piercing Gaze of the Unmaker
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Cost: 10m, 1wp (+10m); Mins: Awareness 5, Essence 4
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Type: Simple
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Keywords: None
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Duration: One scene
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Prerequisite Charms: All-Seeing Overlord’s Lair
The Abyssal’s perception transcends the prison of the world, casting her gaze upon all that she must one day destroy.
The Abyssal casts her perception out from afar. She may choose a specific location — a manse, a small village, a city district — within (Essence x5) miles, letting her observe it as with All-Seeing Overlord’s Lair. This doesn’t let her perceive anything beyond the observed area’s boundaries.
Alternatively, the Abyssal can choose an individual, object, or other specific thing, like “my nemesis, Panther,” “my daiklave,” or “the intruders in my lair.” If a qualifying target is within (Essence) miles, she can observe its immediate surroundings. If there are multiple targets that fit the Abyssal’s description, she can pay a ten-mote surcharge to observe up to (Essence + Perception) of them. She can only observe one at a time, requiring a miscellaneous action to switch between viewpoints.
Anyone observed with this Charm feels a faint unease, as if being watched by something malevolent. If the Abyssal seeks out a specific individual, she can heighten this, letting her make a (Manipulation + Awareness) threaten roll against him. This Charm’s range is doubled while using All-Seeing Overlord’s Lair, or while all five of the Abyssal’s senses are currently enhanced with Inhuman Perfection of (Sense).
With an Essence 5 repurchase, the Abyssal can pay twenty-mote, one-Willpower surcharge to waive this Charm’s range limit once per story. She can even peer even into other realms of existence.
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Reset: If the Abyssal fails an Awareness roll against a target of her observations, she can’t use this Charm against him again for the rest of the session.
Eloquent Example Inspiration
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Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 1
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Type: Simple
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Keywords: None
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Duration: One investigation
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Prerequisite Charms: Traitor-Extirpating Instinct
Blood and fear grease the wheels of bureaucracy, leading inexorably toward the truth.
The Abyssal begins an investigation into an organization by making a demonstration out of one of its members, publicly punishing him for some offense, real or fabricated. She doesn’t need any authority within an organization to investigate it, so long as the group’s leadership approves her punishment — either in advance, or by giving it their imprimatur after the fact.
The Abyssal adds five automatic successes on Investigation and Socialize rolls made in the course of the investigation. When she deals with organization members in the course of the investigation, their fear encourages honesty. This counts as a Minor Tie of obedient fear toward her. If their Resolve (including modifiers from Intimacies) is lower than the Abyssal’s (Charisma or Manipulation), this counts as a Major Tie instead.
This terror is all the greater if the Abyssal initiates her investigation with a fatal punishment. The Tie is imposed in all interactions, not just those related to the investigation, and organization members suffer −2 Resolve when determining its intensity.
Tenebrous Cloud Dissolution
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Cost: 10m, 1wp (1i per turn); Mins: Dodge 5, Essence 3
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Type: Simple
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Keywords: Dual, Mute, Perilous
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Duration: One scene
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Prerequisite Charms: Flickering Wisp Technique
The Abyssal melts into the air, becoming nothing more than dark, chill fog.
The Abyssal dissolves into a cloud of fog, with the following effects:
- She gains +2 Evasion. With an appropriate stunt, she can dodge unblockable attacks.
- She can’t take physical actions except for dodging, Stealth rolls, and movement actions, as well as Charms like Breath-Seizing Mist that are explicitly compatible. She’s still able to speak.
- In combat, she can move two range bands on her turn as an action that can’t be flurried. She can do so reflexively on the turn she uses this Charm.
- She can hover up to close range above the ground, letting her float over difficult terrain and certain environmental hazards unimpeded. She can’t cross running water.
- She can pass through doors, walls, and other obstructions as long as they aren’t airtight or magically warded against such intrusion.
- She’s immune to decisive damage unless its source is enhanced by magic, based on heat or cold, or benefits from an appropriate stunt. Even then, decisive damage rolls against her subtracts (Essence) successes unless they’re based on heat or cold.
- Grappling her is impossible without appropriate magic.
The Abyssal must pay one Initiative at the start of each of her subsequent turns or this Charm ends. It also ends if she’s crashed.
You'll be able to find all of these Charms, along with many, many more, in our next draft manuscript preview coming Tuesday.
And... on December 2nd, we'll have draft manuscript preview #5, which will contain...
Fear Not the Grave
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Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 5, Essence 3
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Type: Simple
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Keywords: Written-only
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Duration: Instant
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Prerequisite Charms: Evangel-Inspiring Blasphemy
The Abyssal teaches that death is not a thing to be feared, only a step along the path to freedom in nonexistence.
The Abyssal makes a special (Charisma + Linguistics) instill roll to compose a missive to a single target: morbid poetry, philosophical arguments, bleak evangelism. Success extinguishes her target’s fear of death, with the following effects:
- He gains +2 Resolve against fear-based influence based on threats of death or physical violence to him.
- His Intimacies related to fear of death or harm are weakened by one step.
- His Intimacies related to acceptance or celebration of death count as one step higher.
- Fear of death plays no part in his decisions — a revolutionary attacks a tyrant heedless of her guards, a monk protests an unjust law by fasting unto death, etc. Acting against this requires entering a Decision Point and citing a Defining Intimacy, or a Major Intimacy if danger is imminent.
This influence can only be resisted when the target faces a significant risk of physical harm. He enters a Decision Point and may cite a Defining Intimacy and spend three Willpower to end this effect.
With an Essence 5 repurchase, affected characters become immune to applicable fear-based influence, and suppress Intimacies related to fears of death or harm completely. They can only resist if faced with a risk of death, not just injury.
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Reset: This Charm can only be used against a given character once per story.
#AbyssalsSwornToTheGrave
Fri Nov 24 '23 Announcement
12 months ago
– Fri, Nov 24, 2023 at 04:37:04 AM
Happy Bleak Friday, Gravediggers!
Time for your Bleak Exaltation! Because we've got the next section of our draft manuscript, containing the rules for Character Creation!
But before we get to today's section from the draft manuscript, I just want to post two quick reminders.
UPDATE #3 - if you've recently pledged, or are thinking about pledging, please go to the campaign page and ready Update #3 to ensure you havent accidentally overpaid or left a tip that you weren't expecting.
SHIPPING CHARGES will be collected in the PLEDGE MANAGER after the campaign –
The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that international shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you live outside the US and aren't sure you want the hardcover or other physical items, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS
Draft Manuscript Previews will be made available in update posts during the campaign. My current plan is have a new section of the manuscript posted every 4 days during this campaign.
Breaking the manuscript into sections and spreading them out over 4 weeks helps guide and focus the conversation, and helps the development team keep on top of the feedback while these manuscripts go through their final development and editing stages.
In fact, if you want to provide feedback directly to the development team, Onyx Path has created a special Feedback Form just for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave! You can access that here: https://forms.gle/iWbzZDwuRGJxUSnf6
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS
In today’s preview, we’ve got Chapters 4 and 5.
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Chapter Four: Character Creation provides rules for creating Abyssal player characters.
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Chapter Five: Traits details the Abyssal Castes and provides rules for the Great Curse and the chivalry of death.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT DOWNLOAD LINKS
The comment section is for all members of this community – united by our shared desire to see this project fund and develop – to cheerlead the project and figure out how best to spread the word about what we’re building here. If you’ve started a thread on whatever social media platform exists today or a Discord conversation about the game or this campaign – let me know about it so we can share that info. If you’ve discussed the game on a blog or podcast, let’s hear about it! If you’ve got funny ideas for social media hashtags, well we can do those too!
If you've got questions about the rules or setting, or just want to discuss this game with other fans (as well as the Onyx Path writers and developers!), you can check out these Onyx Path discussion zones:
On Sunday, we're gonna get our first sneak peek at a trio of Charms; the next section of our fiction will come on Monday, and then Tuesday will have the first section of our massive Charms chapter available for review! It'll be all Charms for the middle of the campaign, and it's gonna be awesome!
#AbyssalExalted
Wed Nov 22 '23 Announcement
12 months ago
– Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 11:12:59 AM
Hello Gravediggers,
I'm gonna get right to a sneak peek from our next manuscript section today. We'll have the full text on Friday, but there's some fun here to whet our appetites.
Dusk Caste
Dusk heralds the coming night, the darkness that sweeps across Creation as the sun dies. One day, it will never rise again. Such is the grim promise of the Dusk Caste. They are the right hand of death, the Swords of the Abyss, butchering armies and laying waste to nations. When the Peacebringers ride to war, they leave naught but corpses and silence in their wake. They exult in slaughter, in the forsaken hymns of their victim’s screams and the sound of soulsteel cutting flesh.
The Children of Ash count peerless killers, brilliant tacticians, morbid warrior-poets, and merciless warlords among their ranks. They uphold death’s chivalry through martial prowess and strength of arms, granting the gift of peace with the edge of a blade. They serve their Deathlords as generals, bodyguards, tacticians, and front-line champions, leading armies of the damned against their masters’ foes. It is rare that the Deathlords deploy the full force of their might, but that may soon change now that the Dusk Caste command their legions.
Most Deathlords prefer to choose Peacebringers from those already skilled in violence and warfare, whether it’s a young hero cut down on the battlefield or a seasoned veteran who’s reached the end of her years. Others are chosen for their murderous potential, given the power to act on the hatred, bloodlust, or avarice that festers within their hearts. Some Deathlords enjoy choosing Dusk Castes from those who died violently, savoring their poetic justice of a Peacebringer avenging their own death.
Renegade Dusk Castes wield their deadly prowess to their own ends. They might roam the Underworld as sellswords or wandering heroes, championing ghostly armies and waging the wars of the dead. Others turn their blades against the wicked, whether otherworldly fiends or all-too-human monsters, protecting those they hold dear by cutting down that which threatens them. Peacebringers who hold positions of command may convince their soldiers to defect with them, forging elite mercenary companies — and occasionally lending aid to their Deathlords’ foes.
Caste Mark: Peacebringer’s Caste Marks are a dark mirror of the Dawn Caste’s: eight-pointed starbursts of darkness bleeding from their edges.
Anima Banner: A Dusk Caste’s anima banners are pitch black, occasionally edged with gray or tinged with dark reds or purples. It’s sometimes accompanied by screams of terror, a sound like an endless death rattle, or the scent of blood, ash, or rust.
Iconic Anima: A storm that rains blood and offal; a vast spectral figure of a ferocious nocturnal predator or slavering carrion-eater; a black-mailed fist descending from the sky to strike the earth; a legion of phantom knights marching behind her; etc.
Anima Effects: Dusk Castes’ anima effects enhance their battle prowess, making them terrifying champions of death.
Caste Abilities: As unparalleled masters of violence and warfare, Dusk Castes choose Caste Abilities from Archery, Athletics, Brawl, Melee, Resistance, Ride, Thrown, and War.
Associations: Death by violence, the season of spring, the color white, the Eastern direction, the full moon.
Sobriquets: Peacebringers, Children of Ash, Swords of the Abyss, They Who Sing Forsaken Hymns.
Concepts: Aristocratic duelist, avenger of the dead, chivalrous warrior-poet, Deathlord’s general, foul-mouthed cavalier, gladiator set free in death, killer for hire, slayer of the wicked, veteran legionnaire, war-necromancer.
Dusk Anima Effects
Death is Inevitable (Permanent): At bonfire anima, the Peacebringer adds (Essence/2, rounded up) to her base Initiative when she resets to base Initiative after a decisive attack.
Fear Made Flesh (Permanent) The Peacebringer adds (Essence/2, rounded up) non-Charm dice on threaten rolls and other fear-based influence, and can affect characters who’re normally immune to fear, like zombies and automatons. This doesn’t overcome magical immunity to fear.
Walking Apocalypse (10m; Reflexive; Instant): The Peacebringer resets all Charms related to combat and movement. Once per day.
Daybreak Caste
As the hated sun rises to drive back the dark, its light banishes the last lingering mysteries, lest these blasphemous truths be discovered by the living. But there is no secret that can be kept from the Daybreak Caste, no forbidden lore that lies beyond their grasp. The Bleak Exaltation has given them all eternity to master the world’s mysteries and hone their unclean arts, achieving a perfection denied to mortal scholars. Relentless in their pursuit of knowledge, the Pyrekeepers seek out ancient libraries of long-dead civilizations, pore over forbidden tomes of deathly lore, and conduct gruesome experiments on corpses and souls.
The Children of Bone seek knowledge of all kinds, from lost texts of long-dead civilizations to the research notes of an alchemist’s apprentice on the verge of a breakthrough. Some jealously hoard their learning, burning libraries, murdering scholars, and defacing monuments to keep their secrets out of others’ hands. The Deathlords prize the knowledge their Pyrekeepers can offer, along with their skill as necromancers, artificers, and delvers of the Underworld’s depths. Some ply the Sea of Shadows, carrying out voyages of exploration or retrieving ancient secrets from far corners of the sunless realm.
The Deathlords seek insight, cunning, and ambition in their Daybreaks. The Pyrekeepers’ ranks include the likes of savants, physicians, and learned elders, but also those who’ve dirtied their hands in pursuit of knowledge, like scavenger princes, grave robbers, and inquisitors. Mortal necromancers are especially prized, gifted pupils eager for their masters’ dark knowledge. Those whose curiosity proves their undoing are especially appealing as Daybreaks to some Deathlords.
Renegade Daybreak Castes are still driven by the pursuit of knowledge — indeed, some defect so that they may dedicate themselves wholly to the study of the Underworld’s secrets. Some hoard whatever knowledge they find for themselves, while others profit off secrets, acting as intelligence brokers to princes, merchants, and even other Deathlords. Some errant Pyrekeepers turn their wisdom to compassionate ends, tending to the sick or building marvels of engineering, though the gruesome nature of their work may disquiet the living.
Caste Mark: Pyrekeepers’ Caste Marks resemble those of the Twilight Caste: black circles with only the top half filled, dripping with blood that weeps from its edges.
Anima Banner: A Daybreak Caste’s anima banner is typically a black mingled with greys, purples, dark greens, bruise-blues, and dark reds. It’s sometimes accompanied by the sounds of twisting muscle and splintering bone, or the smell of rotting parchment, charnel smoke, or embalmed corpses.
Iconic Anima: Labyrinthine patterns of impossible geometries; an ever-watching eye that shines with baleful light; countless tomes set ablaze in an inferno of pyreflame; a withered tree whose boughs bear gruesome fruit; etc.
Anima Effects: Pyrekeepers’ anima effects let them draw power from dark inspiration grant insight into supernatural forces, and let them vanish and reappear in places steeped in death.
Caste Abilities: Scholars of the forbidden and masters of death’s mysteries, Daybreak Castes choose Caste Abilities from Awareness, Bureaucracy, Craft, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Occult, and Sail.
Associations: Death by pestilence, the season of autumn, the color orange, the Western direction, the crescent moon.
Sobriquets: Pyrekeepers, Children of Bone, Eyes of the Abyss, They Who Work Unclean Arts.
Concepts: Artisan of undead horrors, battlefield chirurgeon, calculating strategist, Deathlord’s artificer, explorer of the Underworld, historian of a bygone era, necromantic prodigy, obsessive magistrate, scavenger prince, scholar of forbidden knowledge.
Daybreak Anima Effects
Chthonic Gateway (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant): The Pyrekeeper can use this power on her turn to vanish into her anima’s darkness. This isn’t immediate — if she moves or suffers forced movement or knockdown before her next turn, this power is negated. Otherwise, once her next turn begins, she disappears. She reappears at the next sunrise at a location associated with death that’s somewhere within ten miles. She might appear in a shadowland, an Abyssal manse, a great mausoleum, the tomb-palace of a ghostly prince, or the like.
Essence-Flensing Insight (5m; Simple; Instant): The Daybreak rolls ([Perception or Intelligence] + [Awareness, Investigation, Lore, or Occult]) against the Guile of a supernatural being to discern a useful detail about his magical power. This might reveal that a Zenith Caste with numerous Integrity Charms will be difficult to persuade or that a Dragon-Blood’s daiklave can smite creatures of darkness. She must already be aware a character is supernatural to use this power on him. This power’s cost is waived at bonfire anima.
Twisted Genius Inspiration (—; Reflexive; Instant): While at burning anima or higher, the Pyrekeeper can either gain one Willpower, add (Essence + highest Mental Attribute) necromantic motes to a spell she’s shaping, or add a free full Excellency on any mental action, other than Join Battle. (The Excellency counts as a Charm bonus). Once per day.
#AbyssalsSwornToTheGrave
Tue Nov 21 '23 Announcement
about 1 year ago
– Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 09:17:53 AM
Hello Gravediggers,
I've got some more fiction to share with you today, but first some facts! We've crushed some more Stretch Goals and it's time to set up our next batch of targets!
ACHIEVED! - At $90,000 in Funding - Abyssal QCs
ACHIEVED! - At $95,000 in Funding - Abyssals T-shirt on Redbubble
ACHIEVED! - At $100,000 in Funding - Abyssal Storytelling Section
At $105,000 in Funding - Digital Wallpaper
Amazing Abyssals artwork will be used to create a wallpaper for your computer desktop. This digital wallpaper will be added to the rewards list of all backers supporting this project.
At $110,000 in Funding - Deathlord QCs
Two Deathlords will be written up with Quick Character stats and added to the Companion PDF.
The storm threatened apocalypse, dividing the sky with pikes of bright fire. It was the end of all upon the sea. But at the Siren's Call, there were no worries, no yellow whispers. Ships would scuttle or float on; they would all perish or survive to morning. What could they do? What did it matter? The air was heavy, the atmosphere manic, the tavern overstuffed with grotesques and goons.
The Kingeater grinned at her partners, her dice-hand smooth in charcoal leather, her overturned tricorn hat heavy with silver bits.
"You wanna cheat so much, you buy the next round." Aft the Mast bared rows of razor teeth, a sharkfolk’s signature smile.
“I never cheat,” the Kingeater swore, Essence prickling her fingertips. She pocketed the silver and swept the tricorn over her head — the better to hide her welling caste mark.
"I don't want another round," the ghost of Fair Armando protested. "It tastes like piss and I can't feel it no more anyway—"
The typhoon crested, shaking the graffiti'd walls, shattering a window of rotted glass. A tavern's-worth of monstrous freebooters paused dicing and drinking, moving as one to throw a table against the breach.
"Get us a different round," Fair Armando suggested. "The song."
"Oh, aye!" Aft the Mast bellowed. "That Old Song!"
"I couldn't," the Kingeater played at modesty, but she was already atop the table, her long black frock coat slipping from her shoulders and the lyrics surfacing in her mind.
One by one the revelers fell silent: spirits, beastfolk, and folks yet queerer all listening on in awe. Their stares and the storm ignited a spreading sting in her heart, like a waking limb gone to pins and needles. Death itself wailed out of reach and yet she stood, she sang. That Old Song flowed from her, lyrics in a haunting language she didn’t understand.
A stranger with dark eyes shining sprang to his heels.
She remembered all keen and sudden like a painting. They played That Old Song at her wedding, and she wore the summer sky for him — him, all handsome-fine in a cloud of feathers, giving her the moon to wear on her finger.
The stranger was singing That Old Song, his beautiful black eyes soft and fond.
Essence itched under her skin. A spectral dread seized her throat and left her sputtering, shocked. The Kingeater, her sword-hand furious in charcoal leather, drew Lucrèce and ran him through.
The Siren's Call exploded with the gleeful rage of thirty-some scoundrels. Aft the Mast threw himself snarling after the stranger’s crew. Fair Armando pulled his spectral knife and vanished.
Laughing amidst the abrupt chaos and violence, the stranger grabbed the fellsting’s blade and withdrew it from his bare chest. The Kingeater wrenched Lucrèce free and struck him in the jaw, her fist a blinding blue.
"Who are you?" she demanded, aflame with waking agony. "How do you know that song?"
He rubbed his jaw, the bold tattoos roving his arms a lively, dazzling silver. "I wanted to ask you the same things." The stranger's voice was a hearth fire she abandoned when she left home. It was a light at the top of a tower, and her soul wailed out of reach.
She threw her fist again. He caught it in his palm, his grip cracking her knuckles, radiant silver Essence bleeding into her void-blue anima. Those lovely dark eyes hardened with fresh suspicion. “…But what are you?”
She shuddered as if struck. The Kingeater twisted away from his grasp, crashed through the brawl, through the doors, into the cataclysmal storm. She fled the stranger like a ghost before gravehounds, anguished without knowing why, aghast at what else he might ask her.
***
Prince Yhata — Revered Protector of the Jackdaw Throne, keeper of the eight sacred scrolls, wielder of the pearl-handled dagger named Truth, and ruler of the Kingdom of Sable — sat in his great hall with the Walker in Darkness as his guest. The prince’s retainers were gone, his guards dismissed. He sat alone with the Deathlord, on a plain wooden chair where the petitioners normally gathered. The Jackdaw Throne, its feathers carved into the black marble so perfectly they seemed freshly molted, loomed empty on the dais.
Yhata was a man in his middle age, the victor of a hundred battles. He’d led his people through times of riches and famine, and defended Sable with honor when the kingdom’s riches drew neighboring powers’ greedy eyes. But beneath his princely demeanor ran a grief as deep as the Sea of Shadows.
The Walker didn’t need his informants’ reports to know it was there. Yhata wore it in the tightness around his eyes and the set of his shoulders, as heavy as any crown — the childhood loss of his older sister Ralaya in a raid, Sable’s true prince. What heights might the kingdom have reached with her guidance? Under her rule, they might have rivaled Rake, or swept across the Hundred Kingdoms and built an empire great enough to give Vaneha pause.
But Yhata was cautious where she’d been bold, and had spent his life in the shadow of what might have been. Perhaps, if she’d been alive when the Company of Martial Sinners made camp outside of Sable’s walls, she’d have mustered a resistance, no matter how doomed. She might have sent the Walker’s messenger, with his message stating I can give you what you need, back to the Ebon Spires missing his head. Prince Ralaya might have let her people die rather than cede Sable to the Deathlord and his mercenaries, but Yhata was not Ralaya. He’d received the messenger as an honored guest, and invited the Walker in Darkness to dine with him.
“Even now,” said the Walker, “Vaneha prepares for conquest. Their generals will set their sights on your kingdom, and your people will die. If they don’t crush you, Thorns will finish what they started.”
“And you’re not here to do the same?”
“What need do I have of that, if we’re allies? You’re weary of war. Of the loneliness that comes with a throne. I’m asking very little of you, and in return, I can give you that which you want the most.”
The dagger Truth — forged by the goddess Ninegala herself a thousand years before — lay unsheathed on the table between them, resting atop a large bejeweled case. It was said that its blade would cut false words from the air if they passed over it. It remained inert.
“I want nothing more than for my people to be safe,” said Yhata. Now the blade chimed softly, and a fine ash fell to the table. The prince gasped, and tried again. “What I want, no one can give me.”
“Even now, she makes her way here,” said the Walker. “Your sister, returned from the land of the dead to rule beside you.” He ran a pale blue finger over the case. “Surely that’s worth sharing the wisdom in your sacred scrolls?”
For a moment, the prince seemed like he might balk. What was written on them was for Sable’s rulers alone. His predecessors had guarded their secrets proudly. Ralaya had made him swear to do the same, preventing anyone from attaining the dangerous knowledge within. But then Yhata unclasped the case with shaking fingers and, one by one, unfurled the scrolls.
The Walker smiled as he read them; he hadn’t expected negotiations to go this easily. Ralaya was no longer the woman Yhata had known; she was a warrior-ghost, a black-masked Sainted Sinner, loyal to the Walker through and through. But the eager prince had made his bargain, and the time for questions and clarifications was past.
***
Waves lapped gently at the sands as the Mariner of the Final Shore pulled their skiff ashore. They’d sensed this place from afar, and directed the crew of their ship, the Stonefish, to sail toward it, but the Mariner had known as soon as they saw the mists shrouding the island that they needed to explore it alone.
It was a tug they felt sometimes, like a strong current pulling them toward a forgotten sea. Thus far, it hadn’t pulled them under.
Above, the sky was full of cold blue stars. The Mariner had known Creation’s fixed constellations since they were a child, and had wondered at the inconsistent firmament of the Underworld when they sailed through misty shadowlands. Later, they’d learned other methods of navigation from ghost sailors when they took work on ships, but the Mariner sometimes still looked for those stars they’d named the Shining Lady, the Cat’s Eye, or the Beacon.
The Mariner trudged through fine black sand toward the tree line, following the tracks of some great beast that had dragged its belly and tail along the beach to bask a while before returning to the sea. As they passed through clusters of spindly trees, they startled a flock of azure-winged birds that were feasting on the carcass of a deer. The birds took to the skies croaking the names of the Mariner’s dead loved ones.
As they walked, the Mariner kept expecting to encounter the island’s ghosts. Who dwelled here, among the streams filled with sweet water and the forest flush with game? The animals here were both those native to Creation and creatures of the Underworld. Wild boar rooted through the underbrush, while a pack of barghests roamed close by. Rations snatched mice in their razor-sharp beaks. The Abyssal wondered if this was a place like their home, drifting from one world to another. Perhaps its living inhabitants had grown weary of the uncertainty and set sail for firmer shores.
The Underworld had certainly asserted itself here. Black vines snaked along the ground and twined around the trees, choking them like garrotes. Bright purple flowers dripped from them, releasing the heady scent of blood and rot. Some had eyes that watched the Mariner as they passed. Others had needle-sharp teeth, and strained towards them, eager for a taste of flesh. When the wind sighed through the forest, its voice was near-human, and it carried the sounds of a funeral dirge the Mariner half remembered.
They followed the stream to a place where the forest ended and a sheer rocky cliff gave them a view of a ruin below. It stretched out for miles, the remains of a sprawling city. Its walls had long since fallen, the rubble marking the city’s boundaries now overgrown with those brilliant purple blooms. Carrion birds nested in the towers that still stood, and along the wide boulevard where once there must have been grand festivals, a pack of phantom horses roamed.
It was then the Mariner realized that they’d been wrong about the presence of ghosts. The island was the ghost. Now that they knew it, they felt it surrounding them, felt its ancient death, and the weight of its former vitality. That sense of being pulled on a current came back. In another life, they’d been present for its demise. Had they done this? Had they been the one to wrench it from the world, or had they been its protector and failed in their duty as a Lawgiver? The star they thought of as the Beacon — a star they hadn’t seen since childhood — shone bright over a building with its marble dome still mostly intact. Perhaps they’d find answers within.
Heart aching with another lifetime’s loss, the Mariner sought a way down.
On Friday, we'll have our next manuscript section, which contains rules for Character Creation and Traits. Tomorrow we'll get a preview with a peek at some of the Caste sections!
A note to new backers - be sure to check out previous updates, especially Update #3 which deals with pledging to the campaign, and Update #6 which has our most recent manuscript preview section.
#AbyssalsSwornToTheGrave
