Say hello to the new Mira timeline that took way too long and involved many pin boards and many many questions to Jack about lore details <3 she consumed my brain and crashed my procreate a bit more than normal for a good three weeks
Soooooo hi y'all, I've been cooking this one for like a week. Its legitimately like 4 pages long on word.
In a change of pace from me take a happy, and maybe mildly bittersweet fairy tale about the Ferrymen of the Land of Mists
It’s often said fairy tales are hidden lessons, stories with kernels of truth to be unearthed through time.
This fairy tale is one that has been passed down through generations of people in the lands of mist, the tale of the ferrymen who guide the lost home.
The lantern in the fog
Once upon a time when the land of mists was new and civilization young, there was a small village on the coast of the Sea of Sorrows. During this time the mist was thick and unknown, but she sang of danger and fear to those who dared to wander too close.
In those days the city of light was but a small town, and inside the town was a young woman whose name is now lost to time. This was when towns lost many every year to the mists and the things that lurked within, when beasts of the night were well known and feared by all.
On the night of the new moon, when the sky was darkest and the fog thickest, the young woman was walking near the edge of town listening to the siren song of the Mists. As she is walking peering into the every shifting mists, humming a tune to follow the melody of the song of the mists, she notices a young man. He is sitting under a tree, letting the mists lap at his heels as he writes in a small journal.
“It's not safe out here at night alone” she calls to the young man.
The young woman turns to look at her, a smile crosses his face “Why is that?”. And despite the smile the question seems quite genuine, as if the young man in front of her doesn’t know of the dangers of this land.
“Are you from somewhere far away?” She asks not unkindly to the gentleman before her.
He seems to ponder her question for a moment, “No, my home is these lands of mist same as you”. After answering the question he stands up from his sitting place under the tree. “Well if it’s so dangerous to be out here alone let me accompany you on your walk?”
The young woman ponders his question for a few moments, as trusting strangers is often dangerous, and yet this young man does not frighten her in the slightest. Instead she finds his presence quite calming.
“I see no reason you can’t” she eventually replies “I am going nowhere specific, simply wandering the edges of town to help those who have gotten lost in the fog” she says as she raises her lantern slightly higher.
The young man smiles again “ah I see, so you’re like a light house, but for people”, he says as he chuckles to himself.
“Well” she pauses “I suppose you could say that, I never really thought of it like that” at this the young woman laughs to herself as well. “We’ll come in then, plenty of more town to see” as she turns to continue her route along the city, lantern in hand.
That night was the first night where the young woman did not wander the edges of the town alone. And despite how she often enjoyed the solitude on her nightly vigil, the woman quite enjoyed her new companion.
And so they walked the town until few began to gather on the grass and leaves around them as the sun began to peak from beyond the horizon.
When she noticed the first rays of sunlight coloring the mist and sky the young woman turned to speak to her companion. And yet as she turned to wish him farewell, as the rising of the sun marked the end to her vigil, she found her companion was no longer with her. Confused, she looked around for him to see if she could find where he had gone, but there was no trace of the young man.
Bewildered but exhausted the young woman went home to rest, deeming her companion a figment of the Mists.
The next night when the young woman went out to walk the edges of the town, her new companion was waiting for her at the same tree she had found him. She thought to ask him where he went that morning, but something in the back of her mind told her that she would not get an answer from her new friend.
Instead the woman simply smiled at him and waved him over so he might join her on her walk. His silent presence, a welcoming and calming one.
This pattern of a shared silent vigil over this small village continued for some time. How long is another detail long lost to the sea of time, but what is known is when the pattern changed.
The moon that night is full and blue, an uncommon occurrence in the land of mist. The sky so bright the lantern seemed nearly useless, but still the woman brought it with her as was routine.
Instead of her companion sitting under the tree himself, this where he normally resided was another. The young woman was not blind to the differences this new “man” had, the long ears and slim features of this new man clearly marked him as a fairy. Which was strange, for as far as she knew the fae of this plane were confined to stay within the bounds of the shadow rift.
“Good evening” she calls to them, the young woman offers a slight bow in a show of pleasantries to the fae before her. This fae is unlike the ones she has seen before, the ones who make their home in the shadow rift. Those fae are cold and cause fear to trickle down the back of her spine.
This fae is different from them, his presence is almost warm, inviting like a crackling campfire fire on a cold night under the stars.
The fairy smiles at her and bows in return, a light chuckle passes from his lips as he does. “Its lovely to be greeted with such kindness” he says to her. “I can see why my darling speaks so highly of you”
The woman looks at the fairy in front of her confusion clearly present on her face.
“Apologies” he states “He can’t be here himself he…” the fae pauses clearly searching for the words he wants to say. “He’s a bit indisposed for the moment. But, despite my feelings on the matter and his decisions, I did promise to bring you this since he can’t himself.”
At this the gentleman takes the staff he left leaning against the bark of the tree and holds it out to her. The staff itself is beautiful, carved of a silver wood she has never seen before. And at the top where the wood begins to curl back upon itself hangs a lantern; not unlike the one the young woman currently holds. However this one is made of a different metal, one the woman can not name but it shimmers beautifully in the evening light. The final and most striking difference is the lack of flame or glass, instead at the center of the lantern is a ball of mist that is emanating a soft light.
The woman takes the staff carefully from the fae in front of her, in awe of the beautiful piece in front of her. After inspecting the instrument before her she turns to the fae, “I mean no offense, but I have heard tales of the fae and their kind and gifts are often not without their cost”.
The gentleman smiles “You would be correct, but fear not, his request is quite simple. In exchange for the gift all he, and I in his stead, ask is that you keep to your vigil. My friend, your companion, may be gone for sometime. So use this lantern to keep you company, and keep as eye out for him in the mists, one day you may have to guide him home as well’
The young woman nods her agreement to the terms before she replies “A promise easily made, may the light of the lantern guide him home wherever he may be”.
And so the ferrymen of the land of mists were born, as the young woman began to travel between villages with her lantern searching high and low for her lost companion. Her light became known throughout the lands, and eventually with time she taught others of the young man in the mists, and through him helped more people learn to navigate the lands without fear.
And eventually when her time of keeping the lantern lit was done and her service complete, her companion would return to her. This time to guide her one last time into the mists, to walk side by side with her one final time as they had done many years ago, to her final rest.
So I well and truly have no words here.
I wrote almost 2k words of Percy angst please blame Lexi. This is set well before Mira, and before rusty. When Percy ascends to the high job in the organization
CW referenced (not explicit) abuse (physical, sexual, and extreme relationship power imbalances)
suicidal ideation, Percy is just going through it
anyways take my angst fic (is it a fic if its cannon to my dnd campagin?)
Percy yanks at the collar of the shirt he’s been forced to wear by Zyblina, it feels like it’s choking him. He feels trapped in it, trapped by Her.
Gods does he miss Oberons court, he misses home despite it only being across the courtyard. Some days the idea of running into the king's room and begging for his home among the wildflowers of spring back. It’s a nice fantasy, going home, but Oberon for all his kindness is not one to walk among the nettles to bring home a flower suffocated by the weeds.
So he stands on Her side of the courtyard, trying to rip her damn collar from his throat as emotions he refuses to name bubble up in his chest. Maybe he should keep the collar on, at least it might trap his traitorous heart from trying to escape from his throat.
A new title should be a good thing, more power, more freedom. And yet with every new title, every new rung he climbs up on the ladder, it feels more akin to adding more shackles and bars to his cage instead of climbing towards the freedom of the sky. The feeling of damnation, of walking into a checkmate with no way out, is ever present these days. He wants to lie down among the rose garden in the court yard to let the roots and the worms take their fill. He dreams of joining the birds in the sky to taste freedom among the clouds even if it ends with him among the rocks at the bottom of a sea cliff. He wishes could take off his shackles that bind him to this place and loose himself in the deepest parts of the wild until the dogs find him.
And yet; he does none of these, instead he stares at the doorway to home dreaming of ways to lay down and rest one final time.
He manages to tear his eyes away from the door to Oberon's court, and walks without thinking. His feet lead him down a well worn path towards the outskirts of the court, to a small apothecary.
The silver bell is a quaint shop that hasn’t changed in all the years he’s been in the thorns, run by one of the few fae Percy finds he can trust. As he enters the front garden that surrounds the path to the shop, he is greeted by the laughter of seedlings playing games with each other. It’s strange, the laughter of children should send a smile to his face, and yet their joy brings nothing but sadness and an aching heart. He wants to kneel down to each one and hug them before urging them to run. They haven’t blossomed yet so She can’t know their potential, this is their chance to run before they get snagged in the brambles around them.
Instead he takes a steadying breathe to school his expression while carefully following the path to the front porch. He is greeted with an image so serene he loathes to shatter it with his presence; Irene sitting in a rocking chair reading a book while she keeps an ear out for her charges, looking like the old woman she deserves to be. It strikes him how calm she looks, the tension she always carried with her entirely gone, like she's finally found some peace in this madness.Do they deserve that?
“Percy?” She calls to him, concern flickers across her features as she studies him.
“I - sorry ma'am I was lost in thought”
“Dear how often do I have to tell you not to call me ma’am” she says as she closes her book and stands to greet him properly. “You’re gonna make me feel older than I am if you keep talking like that young man”.
Percy chuckles at that, “well Irene old habits are hard to break, and honestly I’m not so young anymore”.
Irene smiles softly at him, before he can step away she quickly steps forward to pull him into a hug. Despite knowing he has a role to play and they should be keeping a professional distance, Percy finds himself melting into the soft touch of his old mentor turned friend. Irene leans into him and hums quietly under her breath for a moment, “I know you didn’t come out here just to get a hug from an old friend” she murmurs to him.
“Honestly, I’m not sure why I came today” he whispers to her, like it’s a confession made in secret between friends.
She hums quietly in understanding under her breath at that. Eventually she breaks the hug, and brushes at her shirt to straighten it back out “well then, it sounds like we need to have some tea and a chat hm?”. Instead of giving him a chance to reply she grabs her book and heads inside the small shop. She turns around as she reaches the cottage door “I assume your taste in tea hasn’t change since you left?”, she asks with an air of a woman who already knows the answer to her question.
“Not at all” he replies with smiles and he moves to follow her into the shop.
Walking into the shop is like walking backwards into his past, while small details have changed the shop is mostly unchanged from how he remembers it in his younger years. A soft herbal and floral smell permeates throughout the room, the counter is cluttered with drying plants and berries in various stages of becoming jams and preservatives, while the shelves are stocked with teas and dried herbs. It’s like he’s finally breathing clean air when he enters, the weight of responsibility and who he should be lightens under a roof he trusts.
“Wow this place really hasn’t changed a bit” he murmurs mostly to himself.
Irene chuckles under her breath at that “what was it you said about old habits?”. She doesn’t turn to look at him, too busy preparing her tea in a ritual only she understands, “you know if you want I’m sure I have some clothes upstairs that would fit you if you wanted out of that uniform”.
The suggestion sends that emotion he's been trying to bottle slamming against the bars of flesh and bone he’s buried it behind. He can’t, he’s lost who he was too long ago to know who he is with it, without Her.
“Did you hear Kora became the bleeding heart?” he asks, sidestepping the conversation with all the gracefulness of a newborn fawn.
Irene nods her head at that, finally turning to face him as the tea leaves are finally in the pot steeping. ““I did” she says as she regards him “makes me wonder what happened to the kind boy who held the position before her”.
Percy knows she’s watching him for any tell, for a hint of emotion to tell her whatever it is she suspects is true. But he’s never thought to keep secrets from Irene, his walls down and emotions on display in this room. The gaze of his friend has never felt so invasive, so much like Her. He watches as her face falls, she’s seen what it is she’s looking for and for once he’s entirely unsure what it is she has seen; his mask so shattered his not sure which Percy she's seeing.
“Oh Percy” she breathes, walking forward to brush a tear from his face. When had he started crying?
Instead of answering he leans his face into her palm for a moment. “She promoted me today” he mumbles into her palm, like it's a secret and speaking it aloud makes this his reality.
“You know I almost thought that she was going to keep me titless” he laughs bitterly under his breath as he furiously wipes his tears standing up from his resting position. “I had hoped that maybe she saw I was worn out and was replacing me to demote me”.
Irene is frozen still watching the man she knew unravel in front of her as he continues his rant.
“But instead, instead that fucking Witch” he nearly spits the word as venom rolls off his tongue “came to me today after promoting Kora with a gift, and I should have known Her gifts always have string.”
He’s pacing across the cottage now, his footsteps hard and full of hatred as he continues forward, unsure he's even able to stop his tirade now that he's begun.
“She led me to Her office and gave me that smile I’ve seen on Her use on hundreds of clients already trapped too far in Her web. And you know what I thought at that moment, I well and truly thought that I shouldn’t be getting that look.” He stops his pacing for a moment, catching sight of himself in the window. It’s the first time he's seen how he looks in the hours since his promotion, and he looks tired. He stops to stare at himself in the window his ranting turning to a whisper “In all this time I’ve worked under Her, all this time I’ve done things with and for Her I only see in nightmares, and somehow in all this time I forgot I am still Her prey in the end”, his voice cracking as that ugly emotion he has been pushing down all morning finally crawls out of his throat.
It's the confession that breaks him, staring at himself in a window pane as he realizes that being at the top just means he is just the closest play thing to use. The sobs rack his frame as he slides down the wall to place his head in his knees and sob.
Because being Her ringmaster means being Hers in the end, and that chills him to his core.
Mmmmm DM is in a yapping mood and I think telling you some of this won’t spoil too much, but may give you some food for thought.
So welcome to Jack (DM and world god) explains my personal Vandria lore.
Vandria is a very interesting goddess in the 5e lore, a goddess of grief but often know as a paladins goddess. So I really did want to keep that kindness to her, a goddess who is grief and mourning but doesn’t seek it out or make it (such as shar) but a goddess who opens her arms to those in pain to find comfort from something who understands.
And so to do that’s I knew I needed to rewrite her lineage, hence why she’s now a child of Ezra and Shar, lost and loss two precursors to each other that often find common ground in grief. Hence why when Shar was with Ezra following Asters death and before the birth of the twins Vandria is created.
She was not made purposefully nor did either god quite know who she was at first, but when you have two gods of such primal emotions together for long enough something was bound to manifest. Hence one day Vandria walking out of the fog surrounding Ezra and Asters home and staying.
Once her lineage and nature was determined, she was often left with Ezra in times Shar could not be. She, despite meeting Ezra at their worst time, loved her mother and found comfort in comforting Ezra. Vandria was actually the one to finish the twins room with Ezra, who before with Shar left them with the two cradles and simple never went back into the rooms.
She was there when the twins were born, when deals were struck and lines were drawn between gods and other beings, when the twins were hidden or dead. The after math of that time was brutal, Ezra isolated, was reborn more times then history should count and vanished into his fog. Vandria searched for some time wandering in the fog, attempting to find any trace of Ezra to no avail. So Vandria did what she knew, she left her mother’s cottage in the fog to offer comfort to those who were grieving and seeking anyone to sit with them.
Eventually when she wanders back to the fog filled home of her mother to find a temples of Shar lost to the mist, she erects a small grave for the twin girls that haven’t been seen. Despite having no bodies to bury nor names to give them (other then the ones Ezra refused to say as they were gifted to the girls by aster) she erected them a small memorial in the graveyard of Shars fallen. A personal alter for the goddess of grief to grieve a family who she will never know as their loss allowed her to live.
I’ve been having some Siron 3.0 and Ester thoughts so I shall leave them here for y’all.
Siron is used to strange dreams that toe some line between reality and the machinations of his unconscious mind; therefore, walking into a lovely greenhouse where the flora is too saturated is not outside his normal. The strangeness begins while he is inspecting the plants he’s never seen before, when a woman with dark hair streaked with grey rounds the corner. He is used to being ignored in these dreams, often a passive observerof someone else’s dreams, but the woman smiles and greets him like she is aware and unbothered by his presence.
She must see the look of confusion that passes over his face at this, as she lets out a quiet chuckle.
Before he knows it, Siron is pruning the strange plants with her falling into a soothing rhythm. The rest of the dream is a haze, like the memory of a warm blanket when you wake up on a cold winter day.
These sporadic dreams continue for some time, as time passes the locations and number of dreams vary, but the woman remains as a constant hazy memory.
Eventually when Siron's skill in magical creation is great enough, he crafts an automaton in the likeness of the woman who walks his dream.
Of course Ester knows of this, she finds a quiet humor in her tinkerer who creates in her name while thinking her nothing more than a figment of his dreams. And if she blesses his creation with a bit of her guiding magic to lead her craftsman to where he needs to be, that is between her and the stars.
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