#rowan stormborn

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos Part 1: Thief (ch1)

The wind howled through the dark city streets, leaves blowing down the alleyway. The moons rose, full and bright, gleaming down onto the pavement illuminating everything clearly. Metal trash bins were stacked next to the brick building in that alley, two side by side and were probably full of the occupants dinner. And on the fire escape, I climbed, smirking the whole way to the roof.

Tonight was the night, the night when I would prove that I was the supreme thief in all of Kalastria. Tonight would go down in the history books as the day The Fortress was breached by a single person, alone and unarmed. Tonight was the night that children would hear about in bedtime stories about the cunning thief that became a legend. Tonight was the night that Rowan Stormborn would finally become more than a petty pickpocket in the Night King's Court.

I padded softly across the rooftop, taking care to make as little noise as possible. The air was exhilarating up here, I loved it. Up here I could be free and unbound by the social standards imposed by Kalastria's cultures. I crouched down near the edge of the building and surveyed my target.

The Fortress was just that: a fortress. It stood across a large courtyard a building over from my location, the spires going up into the sky. I pulled out my scopes for a closer look. There, five stories up. The window that would allow for my entrance. It was still a long way up from the small brick building I crouched on. And the only way up would be to climb.

I pulled out my pocket watch. 2 moon half, perfect. Around now would be the changing of the guard and I could take my chance to slip in. I rose to my feet, and took a few steps back preparing to jump. "It's all going to go according to plan," I thought to myself. I pulled down my hood and slipped down my Thief's Mask. The Night King would never forgive me if I did this out of uniform. With that, ran quietly and quickly and leapt to the next roof. From there, I slipped down and behind the market stalls in the courtyard.

This had been the best way to get to the courtyard without being seen and right about now... There! The owner of this market stall lived nearby and now is when he carted the shipment of supplies to the Fortress. I stole to where the cart was as he was making ready to pull it with his mule. Slipping under the sheet, I pushed my way in between the bottles of Circadian Rum and hid in the bundle of blankets.

The merchant began leading the mule with cart attached and myself in tow. While the cart would be going into the Fortress I wouldn't be able to ride all the way in. The guards would search the shipment before they accepted it past the second gateway. Instead, I held my breath as the cart pulled up to the main gate, my heart pounding in my ears.

"Hail, Galondi," a voice called out to the merchant, "Joyous Twin Moon to you."

"Hail, Saren." The merchant sounded weary, tired from the celebrations that evening most likely. "Joyous Twin Moon to you. I have the supply cart ready for you."

"Ah, excellent the rum was running dry inside. How is Elewyn?"

The cart stopped moving and I took my chance to slide over the farther side of the cart from where the voices were. A single guard was standing at the gateway conversing with the merchant, and no other guards were in sight. I crept up to the wall. This was going to be risky. The moonlight would show me clearly once I reached the third story. I had to hope that the Night King's assumptions were correct and that the guards and general populace would be too drunk and tired to see.

I slid a metal bar on my gloves and from my fingertips popped sharp metal claws. They should enable me to climb this wall as if I were a caterling. I began my ascent up the wall, my new claws finding and holding onto perfect catches in the building’s bricks and stonework.

I quickly and quietly ascended, the shadow from the main gate keeping me relatively hidden. Soon I would be exposed but by that time I would be more than halfway there. My heart beat faster, the adrenaline coursing through my veins. This was it, the moment had come! I sprang upwards by my arms, feeling a slight ache from over exertion and quickly made my way up through the moonlight.

No exclamation of surprise or shout of arrest. All to plan. I climbed up, intending to pass by the window. As I reached the window I glanced inside and froze. A pair of purple eyes were gazing at me, belonging to a small brown-haired Kalastia Lowborn woman. She gasped in surprise and I jerked myself forward and upwards. My heart was pounding in my ears, I could hardly breathe but I made it to the fifth floor window. It was unlocked as it was supposed to be and slipped inside.

The room I entered was a bedroom, elegantly furnished with a large bed. It carried a the scent of Highborn cologne. As I padded across the room, a large pair of arms encircled my neck and pulled me flush to a broad chest.

"All according to plan, mia?" a voice asked me.

"Not quite, Shade," I responded. "My sister saw me on my climb up."

And so here it is, the long delayed reboot to Planar Chaos, this time not as an MTG fanfic but as its own world. I don’t have a set update schedule and I don’t even know if I’ll continue this from here. But in the meantime, enjoy

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos - The Wrong Questions (Part 9)

It had been a few weeks since the barkeep had told me that Jace Beleran was looking for me. It was rough, but not unmanageable to keep a low profile and stay out of sight since then. I had the training for it, it had just been years since I had to use it in such a way. Usually it was for a stakeout to watch a valuable item and assess how to access it, not for an extended period of time. 

I sat in the small sitting room of my apartment, one that was registered to someone other than myself and that I was fairly sure wasn’t traceable back to me. But then again I’d never dealt with Planeswalkers before now, so I couldn’t tell for certain how long I would be safe. With a sigh, I got up and poured myself a small glass of whiskey. At least I had stocked up my personal stocks of alcohol and food in this safehouse before the news about Beleran came my way.

I pondered him for a moment, and all the things that had happened back on.. What was it called? Innistrad. Yeah that was it. So strange, the conversation between the odd man and.. Her. Whatever she was. I had asked around here on Ravnica, but hadn’t gotten any kind of concrete answers. No one seemed to know about Her or what she was capable of. In all honesty, my questions were probably what led Beleran to look for me here. Otherwise how could he have known where I spent my days?

Jace Beleran. The Living Guildpact. Secretly a Planeswalker, and one that seemed to group himself with similarly powerful people. Including, to my dismay when I heard about it, Lady Vess. Of all people that he could have chosen to bring back with him from that gods-forsaken plane why did he have to choose her? She was a loose cannon at best, and a deranged necromancer at worst. And her connection to the odd man. What was it?

These questions had been floating in my head for days, no answers immediately forthcoming. These questions that didn’t seem to have any kind of answer, at least not tangible ones. I had left Innistrad fully intending to figure something out, and had ended up back on Ravnica. As a beginner, I wasn’t so skilled that I could just wander around, if I tried I ended up back at that grassy place and in company I did not want. At least not right now. Not when they kept so many secrets from me.

I snorted as I took a sip of my whiskey, settling back down with Radimant’s journal. Details in it were hazy at best but it seems like he also had the gift of being a Planeswalker (there had to be a better way to refer to it than just a gift; if I ever spoke to Beleran, I’d ask what they called it). He described wonders that he had seen in various places, worlds that seemed farfetched at best. A place where tribael warrior groups ruled and dragons had died out was one of them. Frankly that didn’t matter to me if dragons were gone. One less Niv-Mizzet was good in my books.

Another where the land was ruled by gods, gods that were fueled by the power of worship. Again, I snorted at the thought. What an incredibly unreliable way to secure power. At least mine would be mine until the end of my days thanks to the pact of Radimant. But who had he made the pact to?

I set the book and my glass down. I was getting nowhere. I could always visit one of these places, but something told me that wasn’t a good idea. It was never a good idea to just jump into an unknown situation, considering how many years ago this book was written. These places could be completely different than what was described, even the exact opposite. My training told me this was a bad idea. Besides that, what if it was Innistrad all over again? Getting involved in a situation that was out of my depth and none of my business.

No... I supposed it was time to finally seek out Beleran. With any amount of luck, maybe the flame woman would be there. She seemed to at least understand my personality in the brief time that I spoke to her. I drained my glass.

My decision made, I gathered my things that I would take for an extended stay out and made my way out of the relative safety of this apartment and into the harsh sunlight. We would see if Beleran could answer my questions any better than this damned journal could. At least put names to the places described.

As I made my way down the street, I pondered not for the first time why Beleran would be seeking me out. Maybe it wasn’t because of Innistrad but because he needed something stolen? I grinned. It would be nice to get back to work... I decided to reserve my judgement until speaking to him. At the very least, Lady Vess would want something, information at the very least. And she would pay me very handsomely for it, or she wouldn’t receive services. Not after the stunt she pulled.

I pulled my hood up, walking towards the Guildpact building. It was several miles in the distance, but I couldn’t shortcut it over the rooftops like I would at night, not in broad daylight. And besides. There still was the matter of my would be assassins that had started this entire mess. They hadn’t caught wind of me yet, but then again this was Ravnica where you never knew which guild was watching you at any given point. The Dimir had their ways, as much as people didn’t want to believe they existed. 

Regardless. Maybe it would be time to figure some of this out finally. I could only hope.

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos - The Sky Comes Crashing Down

Quick AN: I’m not numbering parts to Planar Chaos any longer at this point in time. I wish I could give you a reason but I can’t. Just lazy. Also short chapter. I plead the fifth

A wave of energy came cascading towards me (us, really if you counted Vess, which I neither did nor would want to), and I used my acrobatic skills to jump onto a wall and then over it. I was holding my own against the tentacles of Emrakul as the others were in their meditative state. At least, that’s what I’d like to think I did. In reality, Vess was doing most of the work. She seemed to have mastered the chain veil and sent blast after blast of necromantic power at our enemy. I supplemented with the invocations in the old tongue. An explosion here, an blast of Eldritch power there, and Emrakul seemed to be on the ropes.

Keyword, seemed. Vess stopped to take a breath and was overtaken by the tentacles and raw power that Emrakul blasted our direction. At this point, I felt my mind being touched and instinctively tried to turn away from it. But the message couldn’t be denied.

I am’rakul, we are’makul. Come be m’rakul

No, no, I thought back, blasting with all of my might. No. I can’t I won’t. As I did, another voice spoke in my head, through me.

Hate to break it to ya, it said, But this one is mine. You can’t take him.

I felt on my hand, still coursing with energy, become overcharged. A large wave of energy coalesced at my palm and the earth shook. As the wave blasted towards Emrakul, any still living plants withered and died. I felt a skeletal hand touch my shoulder and looked behind me to see the strange man from what seemed like ages ago.

“What say we get out of here, grab a bite to eat, come back when the chaos is over?”

I was tempted.

“No,” I said turning back seeing that Emrakul had shrunk back probably regrouping. “I need to be here. To see this.”

“No, you really don’t.”

And again I heard in my mind the voice of Emrakul

OLD ONE, FLY FROM ME AS YOU ALWAYS DO. LEAVE, YOU AREN’T NEEDED. LEAVE YOUR PACT-LING

“Fat chance,” the man said aloud. He jumped up and flew onto a nearby rooftop. “This time I watch you die and Reap you for good.”

It is not my time. You haven’t been paying attention.

At that, my eyes snapped up and I saw the Gatewatch grouped together with the addition of the strange woman. She looked even odder as she drew out a banded scroll and began to recite.

“NO!” the man screamed.

It was too late. The moon rippled and all at once sucked in Emrakul, leaving the group tired and exhausted. I jumped up towards the odd man.

“You owe me an explanation.” It wasn’t a question.

“You’re right. Too bad about that, huh?” and all at once he vanished leaving me alone.

“Oi, Stormborn!” I looked down to see the flame haired woman calling me. I gave her a small salute with my fingers and stepped from this plane. I wasn’t playing this game anymore. Rowan Stormborn is not a pawn to be used as this old man thought I was. It was time for answers

******

It was a few months later, I was in my favorite tavern, that is to say the only one I ever visited. The good old Wealthy Virgin, part of the city’s underground. It was a great place to pick up jobs on Ravnica. I had been working, slowly getting back into things. It took a while. But for that moment, life was peaceful and I was slowly getting the information I needed.

“Stormborn,” the elf at the bar growled at me. “Got a rumor for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Someone’s looking for you. Part of the Azorius. At the Guildpact headquarters.”

I sighed and finished my drink. “Time to get going. I’ll be seeing you some other time.”

I left the tavern and drew my hood up. I would decide tomorrow whether or not to answer the rumored summons.

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos Part 7 - When the Stars Align

The closer I got to the town, the harder it became to keep my mind my own. I wondered why anyone would even want to get close to this town, if even to save it from what seemed its demise. But march on I did to meet the group that the odd man was so insistent on me meeting. That was another thing I pondered as I walked, anything to keep my mind off of the monstrosities that were erupting around me. 

Who was he? It seemed like he was planeswalker, like me and Vess. But the way he talked, the way he seemed to relish in this plane, the scythe, which still had a mark on my neck..

There were stories on Ravnica here and there about what death actually was. These stories were borne of the Selensya explaining the circle of life to children, perpetuated by the Golgari as a good way to justify their necromancy, and outright ignored by the Orzhov who didn’t care if they were dead or not. Business was business. In one story, there was a tall figure in black, there to reap your soul and bring you to the afterlife. But since ghosts still existed on Ravnica, I never believed them.

Continuing this line of thought, I kept walking. At some point a woman started clicking her fingers in my face to snap me out of my reverie.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I just wa-” I stopped midsentence. This woman was different than any I had ever seen before. Her skin was a bright white and her clothes were outlandish, even by this planes standards. Her hair was drawn up into two tight buns on either side of her head, and she had several tubular cases strapped to her body. 

“Child, what are you doing here?” she asked me, ignoring my stares.

“I was told to come here, to meet some people. A group of people like me. Planeswalkers.”

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a moment. 

“You had better come with me,” she said, grabbing my hand. She pulled me upward and we flew towards the center of the town, closer to the monster, Emrakul. I looked down as battle raged below between vampires, priests, and horrific monsters the likes of which I hoped never to see again. We flew until we came to a group of five people, fighting the horrors back from their position, terrifyingly close to the Monster.

Then she dropped me, and landed herself on a rooftop observing everything.

I hit the ground and my instincts kicked in.

******

Invoking the words of power in the old language isn’t easy, it taps into the power of both the user and the pact. It’s also one hell of a way to make things happen. All of the words of power I learned, I had learned from my father before he passed on. One he told me I should never utter unless I was stuck in an impossible situation. 

Now counted.

I uttered the word, a word so vile that the ground underneath the horrors to one of the people’s right exploded, the earth then swallowing them up. Then I gathered in as much energy (mana?) as I could and let loose a blast of Eldritch energy, a doom circle hitting every single horrific beast in my vicinity.

Whether or not this made any difference, I don’t know because who should show up right this second with a horde of zombies but Liliana Vess. Vess ordered the zombies to take the rest of the horrors down and then turned to a man in blue. She said she was there to help. I snorted.

Her purple eyes snapped to me and she glared.

“Who are you to dare question my motives?” she demanded.

“Oh you know, just the guy that you made wear that,” I pointed at the chain veil that was hanging on her hip. She instinctively protected it with her hand.

A larger man in armor and a strange whip approached me. “Who are you anyway?”

I sighed. “Rowan Stormborn, at your service,” I said giving a deep bow. “Thief and assassin extradonaire with a side order of warlock ass kicking. That is I’m a warlock that kicks asses.”

The woman in red grinned, her hair still blazing on fire. “And a smart ass to boot. I like you already. Chandra Nalaar.” She held out her hand. I shook it grinning as well.

“Love to get to know you all, but there’s something else we need to deal with. Drinks at a pub on me when we get done?”

Chandra was still grinning. “Deal! Let’s do this!”

As one, we all turned towards Emrakul. I just hoped that the stars had aligned in our favor. Though with Vess back in the picture, I doubted it. 

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos Part 6 - Pact of Radimant

My head was swimming, my headache was getting worse, and it was all I could do to keep walking towards the giant monster ahead, past the people fleeing in the opposite direction. Some other people walked the same direction, their eyes glowing with a kind of mania that I didn’t fully comprehend. That I couldn’t fully comprehend. Whatever this thing was that I was moving towards wasn’t right, something that shouldn’t exist on any world, especially not this one.

Though I suppose if I were said monster and I had to pick a place to generally wreck, this place would be as good as any. At least it (she?) wasn’t on Ravnica. I shuddered at the thought.

The closer I got, the more my headache grew, and the more my thoughts wandered. As they wandered, they slowly drifted to the journal that I had in my bag. The Warlock’s Journal that contained information from the first in our line to make the Warlock’s Pact. It had always bothered me, that book. It contained knowledge passed down in the bloodline about the first of us. My father had explained to me on that fateful day that all warlocks had at some point made a pact with a higher being, and that pact was to be honered by those that inherited the powers afterwards. But he never told me what the pact exactly was, or how to honor it. Just that it existed. And he never ever told me to who or what the original pact was made to.

*****

“Daddy, what history are we learning today? Is it more about the guildpact?”

“No son, we’ve covered that extensively and you know what your duties are as a member of the Selensya.”

I nodded. I was to help with the daily harvest and help keep the commune running, as were we all. Everything we did helped the City-Tree as a whole. I liked being on the commune, far above the rooftops of the buildings below. Things seemed so much more peaceful here.

“Son,” Daddy interrupted my thinking. “Do you remember exactly what happened yesterday?”

I gulped. I knew this was coming but I didn’t want to get in trouble.

“...yes...”

“Tell me what happened, in detail.”

I took a deep breath. It was okay, even if I did get in trouble it was better to tell what happened and get it over with. 

“I was helping with the harvest like I was s’posed to. And when I reached for the next carrot, my hand did something funny and it melted back into the ground. Donny saw and ran away scared.”

“What did your hand do?”

“It... It... It was like a tiny bolt of purple lightning came out of my finger. I don’t know how it happened honest!”

Daddy chuckled. “It’s okay, Rowan. That was your birthright. It was passed to me and now it’s going to pass to you. We are what are called Warlocks. Powerful mages in the right circumstances, but we’re special and different from other mages.”

“We are?”

“Yes we are. Our abilities are given to us from a greater being.”

“Like Selensya?”

Daddy chuckled again. “Yes, like Selesnya. Your great great great grandfather Radimant made a bargain with a higher being, and in exchange for his service when the time came he was given special powers. Those powers were passed on to his daughter, who passed it on to her daughter, who passed it on to my father, who passed it on to me. And I have passed it down to you.”

“What does it mean? Service to the person he made the pact to?”

“No one really knows son. When you’re old enough, I’ll give you Radimant’s journal. Everything you could ever need to know will be in there. But you will need to wait to read it until you absolutely need it. Now, that’s enough history for today. Go out and do your chores, I’ll see you at lunchtime.”

******

I jolted out of my memory suddenly, realizing I was that much closer to the monster. Around me, people were falling to their knees, mutating into abominations of tentacles and eyes. It was gruesome metamorphosis. One man fell down and landed next to me, clutching his head. I reached out, hoping to help, when suddenly his head exploded into a mass of tentacles as he let out a gut wrenching scream. My hand recoiled and I looked back towards the monster that I was approaching. I looked into its (her?) purple eye and it (she?) looked back at me. 

I heard a voice in my head at that point. COME TO ME. BECOME ME. CLOSER TO WHAT I PROMISE. COME TO JOIN ME. JOIN ME. 

The voice crescendoed in my head becoming louder and louder. I fell to my knees as well. Was this it? Was I going to become one of these things around me?

No. Not yet. I had to get back to Ravnica. I had to get home. I had to find out what it meant to be a Planeswalker. 

The Izzet were crazy but they knew how to balance their minds. Using one of the spells I learned from them, I managed to push out the invading presence in my head. As I did, my head wandered back to the book in my bag. I still hadn’t opened it. If I survived this, I would definitely be taking a look at it. 

I got to my feet and started my slow walk again towards the town and monster, Emrakul. And as I did all I could think of was if this was the thing I was pledged to. If this was Radimant’s Pact. Because if so, then the pact would end here with me. That much, Emrakul promised.

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos - Author’s Note 2

There won’t be an installment of Planar Chaos tonight. While I have been chugging right along, my all day excursion and the fact that I’m exhausted right now have put me at a stand still. I know roughly what happens next in the canon of Eldritch Moon and how I want to change it, and this is where it gets tricky: inserting Rowan into established events. He’s going to be filling in for Lily when the Geist Expert uses the witchbane orb to try and drain the omake out of the Chain Veil (which honestly, that’s a very Liliana thing to do), and the pain he’ll experience will be a turning point in his character which up to now has been very laid back in the sense that he’s been going along with what people tell him to do.

Rowan may be out of his depth, but that doesn’t mean he’ll accept outright torture, which is what he’ll consider this to be. This is also when all hell starts breaking loose with the Eldrazi twisted werewolves making an appearance.

I don’t plan on having Rowan join the Gatewatch, but they should meet and fairly soon with Liliana Vess and her army of the damned hot on his heels. What I need to figure out is how to get Rowan to in character want to get to Thraben and the mass of tentacles there. I have an idea of how to do it, but it might tip my hand about his past too soon.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the mean time it’s like 1am. I’m fucking beat. Good night.

[jwdragair]

Planar Chaos Author’s Note 1

Obviously despite my earlier whining, I forged ahead with the next part of Planar Chaos. There are just some things that I wanted to kind of talk about here since the chances of people reading this until after it’s all done is almost nil

Rowan Stormborn is a complicated character. It’s not immediately obvious what his deal is, and I’ve written him that way on purpose. I want him to come off as a simple person that you think you have pinned down, when in reality his motives are far from what you might think. Tonight’s installment was part of that. The Rowan that we know, that we see in the present day is in his mid 20s. Flashback Rowan was much much younger and obviously had a great relationship with his parents.

So I want you to ask yourself, assuming you haven’t already read other material, why aren’t they around now? And what exactly does the signet ring mean? Does it have a purpose?