The Pilgrimage: Temet Nosce (5)

Through the Veil of Death itself you had travelled, finally free of the spirits of the Umbral and Celestial Angels so rudely bound to your Soul by your parents’ monstrosity. In your convalescence, more of your past was rudely thrust to light, and you discovered your own Noble heritage, and the intimidating possibility of claiming it from ‘undeserving’ hands.

True to your oaths, you had continued your pilgrimage, once again crossing paths with the Cheshire Amaranth, Daughter of Lord Baron Alexander, Grail Knight and Founder of the Black Knights of Corvus and Mistress Kylie, Handmaiden of Hell’s Throne.

Yet it was not the guidance of these towering figures you sought, but that of one yet more titanic. Lord Samuel, the Caladonian, Disciple of Corvus and Last of the Resonants. For only he knew the true identity of your Dark Mage father, who you were sworn to stop, at any cost…

The Pilgrimage: Hosannas in Extremis (4)

From Vampires to Atlach Nacha, Baphomet and Witches, your travels since rescuing the Countess Maris and seeing her Consigliere Marcus returned to health have been anything but uneventful. The Sabbath seek a new home beyond the restrictive governance of the Four Empires, a task which you were singularly unequipped to assist with.

Driven forward by the Mysterious Song, you and Doyle, an itinerant Bard and one of the few naturally born sons of Human and Mamono parentage, left Albany, hoping to complete her seemingly unknowable story. All the while in the back of your mind, you feared the mumblings of the Witch Tina, who had forseen your death at the hands of yet another song… The Secret Song at the Centre of the World, whose sound was as of teeth in flesh.

The Pilgrimage: Da Pacem Domina (3)

The Power of Heaven, in the form of the Cupid Cirice came to your aid, striking against the Foulness of the Dead God, Dagon. Rousing the Sea-God Oannes, Grandfather Ocean, you exulted in victory, as well as the anointing of a new Tide Priest. Sigurd, once Captain of the ‘Shieldmaiden’, is now betrothed of the Sea-Witch Sapphire, A Kraken servant of Oannes, and the God’s newest adherent.

Thomas, your brother in faith also shared in revelation, attaining the Adept Intersect and being finally able to consummate his love for the Circle Mage Ellie, returning with you and her brother Baron Robbo of Towoomba to the Reitian Temple of Hive Sea of Grasses.

Yet unexpected surprises met you there too, a group of the once thought extinct elves searching for an avatar of one of their Wild Gods, an avatar found in the person of the Reitian Disciple Padraig. Sorrow mixed with joy as the Laws of the Gods demanded a cost for their new Year-King. Taliesin, one of the elves, was now a bound Acolyte of Reitia, and their fellowship, closer than any natural bond, was broken.

Your own past did not sit quiet either, your demoniac mother corrupting one of the Reitian acolytes in the midst of a storm of Wild Magic. It was only quick action from you and your elven allies which prevented the youth from damning himself beyond redemption with the use of dark magic. Now, in the company of the Vampire Thrall Marcus, and the Black Knight Victor, you hunt down this ‘Red Witch’, determined to end her threat once and for all…

The Pilgrimage: Gloria in Excelsius Dea (2)

Assaulted, arrested, whipped to within an inch of your life… Your First month as a Pilgrim of the Reitian Temple has been anything but uneventful. Yet you have discharged your duties, Sending Fynn to meet with a Kobold in Williamsberg who is desperately in love with him. Bringing the Centaur Matriarch Rose and the Black Knight Jamie to reconciliation. Helping the Hellhound Becca to admit her deep and abiding love for the Waylander Ian.
With Charlestown wrapped up in the joy and anticipation of impending weddings, you set off towards the eastern Free City of Atlantea, in the company of Robbo and Gilly, a Human and Dingo posing as simple traders. Nothing, you discovered, could be further from the truth, as Robbo turned out to be a deposed Noble from The Australs, the harsh and unforgiving island in the world’s southern hemisphere, who even now plotted to have his birthright returned to him.
You and Thomas, a fellow Reitian Pilgrim, explored an abandoned temple at the behest of the Nordenlander Sigurd, a worshipper of Corvus, Dark God of Destruction. There, you discovered a horrible truth. The God of the Ocean, Oannes, had been supplanted in mind and worship by a foul and forgotten entity, an entity known only in whispers, by the name of Dagon…

The Pilgrimage: Novo Ecclesia (1)

(Another CYOA from /monster/, posted for posterity and because it encompasses a lot of the backstory for some critical characters in upcoming stories)

You are Deniel the Holdsward, Acolyte of the Caladonian Temple of Reitia. After demonstrating your magical aptitude and completing your noviate under the tutelage of the Time-Spanned Disciple-Mages and the Hive-Queen Priestesses known as Mellisarae, you have been sent on a ritual mendicant pilgrimage. Designed to improve your magical abilities through humble service, you prepare yourself to step out into the wider world, not knowing where you will end up, but trusting that Reitia, Goddess of Love and Protector of Families will guide you on that path.

A Garden of Delights

Civil unrest grows ever broader as the true extent of Mamono impact upon human life makes itself evident. Financial crises and unemployment are rampant, even the sciences are feeling the pinch. It is in this uncertain time that Ashley Hendricks finds himself, with a possible way out of the directionless subsistence existence of the welfare class, a way held open by a Mamono hand. But The Order too offers its temptations, and more and more Humans are willing to bear its brand for the chance to be more than the world has allowed them to be.

The Long Game

Staring down the gullet of the twenty-second century, Human and Mamono still desperately seek the normalcy of a peaceful life, even against the ever-growing threat of The Order, the Fledgeling Lodges of History working tirelessly behind the scenes to make their desires possible. In the relative peace of the Southern States of the USA, Carson Peters, a young machine tech, graduate of the Gremlin schools, struggles with a broken heart. But his is not an average story, and the lengths to which he will be forced to go, not those of any ordinary man…

Child of the Australs: A Tanuki named Juni (5)

Upon your Recovery from the psyche-shattering revelation of Raoul’s true nature, you were in turn confronted with the secret identities of another of your companions. The Koala Cally was revealed to be, like the Gremlin Emmy, a Handmaiden of Hell’s Throne. An Agent of Maou, the Goddess-Queen herself, answerable only to the upper echelons of the Council of Matriarchs. The Lilim Telia, her machinations now come full circle, revealed the true role she had devised for you. In concert with the Gremlin’s mechanical expertise, you were to open a rift to the world known only as ‘Wonderland’, to facilitate the evacuation of the mamono who still lingered there, faced with utter annihilation from the destructive force they knew only as ‘The Nothing.’

With the assistance of the Cogitator Bjorn, a resonant whose near-incommunicatively autistic mind lent him to phenominal feats of computational ability, you constructed the device, and at Raoul’s request, stripped the Master Resonant of his connection to The Logos, thus enabling him to embrace for the first time, the true, terrifying power of Lord Dumat.

Amplified by Angelic authority and tapping into the massive ley-nexus which lay in the centre of the Australs, you succeeded in opening the rift, and the majority of the Wonderlanders were brought safely through, from there to be transported to various corners of the world, and some even to the Hells themselves. Yet this act was not without cost. Having drunk so deeply of Angelic power, Raoul Ascended from his mortal form, becoming the inscrutiably alien Seraphim Rhaziael, the loss of his former humanity keenly felt by Cally, his former ward. Her task completed, Cally reluctantly left your company, her own tasks bearing her somewhere to the east.

Rewarded beyond dream of riches by the grateful Lilim, you set out back towards the west, where the potential to purchase some of the famously rugged horses of House Kalbarri was too great to pass up. The Griffon Bella joined you in this endeavour, eager to remain in the company of her new friends.