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Madness at Gardmore Abbey -session 4

played July 23

Font of Ioun

Berrian

Visions

You make your way up the path, and enter a clearing. A font bubbles from a tumbled-down fountain, its water sparkling in the light. Encircling its broad base is a mosaic depicting a platinum dragon and a silver stag in eternal chase; the tiles that define the beasts' shapes are marked with miniature runes. Along the mosaic's perimeter, toppled walls and mossy statues form a broken stone shell bounding what once must have been some manner of shrine. Clouds of magnficent blue and purple butterflies float around the clearing.

A host of eladrin camps amid the fallen walls, hair and mail shimmering like quicksilver. They seem alert, as if having been stirred by the ring of a bell tower. The male leader, tall and silver-eyed, scowls as you approach and brandishes a gleaming longsword –. ‘What is your business here?’ he says. ‘Speak quickly or fall where you stand.’ In the blink of an eye the other Eladrin suddenly teleport and surround you, their own bright swords instantly drawn. The trees around the font seem to whisper and shift, although there is no wind to blow them.

The fey knight nods as each of you speak, though their eyes linger on you distrustfully.

Berrien introduces himself , a note of bitterness in his tone. His stern features do not soften. Although possessing the ethereal beauty and unlined skin of the fey, dark circles under those silvery pearl eyes speak of exhaustion. His delicately embroidered tunic of green and grey is clean, but very thin in places, and below it the mithril coat of chainmail glimmers but is missing some links.

‘I am Berrian, Seigneur of house Velfarren. For two human lifetimes I have searched the wide world over in a quest to discover the mystery of my father's fate and pay a son's proper tribute to his memory. All roads have led me here, to this human ruin. But once again they diverge and lose themselves in the fog of time, and though I near their ends I cannot see them clearly. Do they lead to dishonor? Vengeance? Death? It is impossible to see. I know only that in this place is a madness like in no other, and I will not be tricked again.’

Another Eladrin talks to Berrien ‘They do not speak respectfully? What are they hiding? – what is their purpose here? – to claim this fey grove for the Orc’s? They’re wearing Orcish garbs.’. Berrian addresses you again, this time his tone is slightly softer, but the distrust etched on his impassive face remains.’

He steps over to the table and pours the contents of a flask into six glasses, and hands you one each, taking the sixth himself. 'Feywine, to remind us of our home, I apologise if I have been discourteous.' Berrian offers up a toast to far off homelands and indicates around him. 'Do you feel it? This grove thrums with the life of the Feywild. But the closer we come, the farther we fall away. Fey beasts lair in the ruins. Gossiping nymphs tantalize us with secrets. And now my sister Analastra too has vanished, thus halting our sacred quest until she can be found.'

You sense that Berrian's sole priority is his family - first his sister, then his father, and finally the retainers who have accompanied him on his journey. You think that he would defends his charges fiercely against any threat and refuses to admit any distraction from his quest to find his father. No ethical principle guides his action except the loyalty of kinship and his sense of honour. Although aloof, he seems passionate and mercurial, quick to take offence and suspicious of anyone new. He is proud, defensive and stubborn and expects proper deference, responding well to respect, humility, honor, and sincerity.

‘Do you know what I have discovered since I arrived? These overgrown gardens were created and planted, not by the humans, but by the fey – by our kind. Humans and orcs have no concept of claims to plants and animals; no understanding of natural beauty. Everything will be destroyed and this little piece of the feywild will be trampled.’