More Adventures in Tellene - Main Tale - Background articles

[EvilGinger]

Paladins of non Lawful good religions

Introduction
A while ago, whilst I was still playing in my friends excellent Frandors keep based game and playing a character that every body told me was a Paladin waiting to happen in fact I read an posting on the Kenzer and co forum about the possibility of Paladins or rather an equivalent sort of divine champion coming from the non lawful good faiths of Telene. The writer was particularly interested in the Free, but it got me to thinking more broadly on the subject and I made a few mental notes for future use.

These ideas churned about in the creative stew, which I use as a substitute for a mind according to some and linking up with what I thought was a cool concept of a Tiefling Paladin another friend of mine had created for an all to brief on line game  we got Violet of who more latter.

It also generated a quantity of more general thoughts on the subject which resolved as the following.

•   All the gods of Telene could if they so wished create something equivalent to a Paladin if they so wished.
•   Most of the gods of Telene chose each for there own reasons not to for the greater part.
•   The Evil ones largely because evil at all forms I feel requires a selfishness which really doesn’t work with the concept of a divine champion or group of champions requiring, again my feeling a certain selflessness. Also the Evil gods or at least some of them would become jealous of their own champions and see them as competition, or in some way seeking to replace them.
•   Most of the others saw no general need for such and for the greater part saw their respective priesthoods as sufficient
•   Those which did not chose not to where mostly the more martial lawful neutral sorts  with substantial knightly orders, the Founder and the Old Man and these where not unlike paladins having traced the same or very similar  routes as the paladin going from  fighter to knight to exemplar.
•   The others which did but not all the time creating them only at need where the Peacemaker who would do so at times of extreme conflict and at present there is no such conflict on Telene. These champions rose form the ranks of its priesthood and where gifted with greater and more specific powers as well as retaining access to the magic of their god
•   The Great Huntress and the Bear generally chose dedicated rangers when needed with the Bear more likely to do so than the Huntress whose patience allows her to see that most threats will simply pass.
•   The Battle Rage has done so once using a dedicated barbarian chief to unite temporally the Fhokki clans of the north to stop the advance of the Kalamarian Empire in its expansionist phase but has not done so since. Given the rise of the Grevan another one may be required
•   The Guardian has had exactly one champion at any one since the release of The Overlord from his prison by the Pel Brolenonese and no two of them have been from the same origin but tend to be outcasts with a high degree of personal responsibility and intelligence. Recent ones have included other than Violet a reclusive wizard, a half hobgoblin gladiator. The power’s the Guardian gifts each with also varies considerably from case to case.

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

A Brief History of the Champions of the free.


The champions of the free though they do not all call themselves that are a rather recent phenomena. The Guardian saw no need for such an individual for long ages of the world relying on its priesthood to spread its faith and further its aims.
This all changed when a group of adventures opened the long sealed prison of the Overlord in Pel Brolenon and the nascent refugee kingdom of Pel Brolenon went for one where the guardians following was strong amongst those who had fled the then still on going Brandobian civil war and come to reject absolute authority and its ability to lead autocrats into such actions as lead to the repression of the demihumans of Brandobia and the subsequent civil war., to one where the faith of the free was anathema to the state and the followers hunted people. This did not happen quite over night but it did very quickly and the resistance to the Overlord’s coup was limited in its effectiveness and very fragmented. Such resistance that lasted beyond the first few weeks coalesced around a former Brandobian knight of one of the orders of Knights the Founders creation, who had become disillusioned by the war of brother against brother and had abandoned the fight when his own order turned against him as his grandfather was a half elf and in the xenophobia of the height of the war he was labeled as tainted and considered a potential traitor. He lost his faith and fled the madness over the mountains to Pel Brolenon
The Champion who had returned to his family occupation of farming at the time of the Overlords coup felt obliged to take up arms again leading his friends and neighbours in the fight. Quickly reduced to little more than bandits they held on and in due course joined up with a small band lead by a priest of the free who aided the knight and who in due course oversaw his conversion to the faith of the free. Shortly there after when the guardian was looking for a figurehead it chose him.

He maintained the insurrection for nearly ten years there after and whilst it was not successful it remained a considerable nuisance to the theocracy, but in the end it was betrayed and the first champion died conducting on last solo charge into the overlords forces hopping to buy time for the non combatants in his following to make it over the high passes into Kalamar.



The Guardian considered the idea a success and chose a second champion a mine slave in the infamous silver mines of Pel Brolenon which are responsible for financing its fleet and for bankrolling the Overlords plots through out Telene. The revolt she lead denied the theocracy the revenue form them for nearly a year, but such a threat drew the full force of the theocracy against it and the rebel where drawn into open battle and slaughtered to the last one. The Theocrat had the heads of the slain rebels magically preserved and they are still to be seen along the roads to the principle silver mines. The next champion was a Kalamarian ranger who led raids against the slave pens and helped the escaped slaves escape to the relative safety of Kalamar to the east. Again this proved nothing more than an irritant as the ranger was never able to free enough slaves to make a difference and in the end his luck ran out. The guardian however thought the practice worth continuing and the next champion a Kalamarian noble lady took the rather moribund at the time brotherhood of the broken chain and reinvigorated it she was the first champion to die in her bed not at the hands of her enemies who she evaded and lead round in circles with consummate ease.


The next another Ranger this time from Mendarn tried to raid into Pol Brolenon form the west over the difficult high mountain passes but died when it became apparent that the Pel Brolenonese now knew every single pass in and out of Pel Brolenon no matter how difficult to cross and had taken steps to make sure that all where watched toughly so no escaped slaves could leak out that way.  The next was a reformed Pirate who released several ship loads of slaves on their way across the straights of Svimohzia in both directions but he came to his end ironically when he was landing slaves he had rescued on the coast off Kalamar and the Kalamarian navy took him for a slaver, raiding the coast of southern Kalamar.



At some point around three or perhaps four champions ago the Guardian moved its choice of champion form the central south in and around Kalamar and its subject kingdoms or southern Brandobia to the north east

Both Violet and her two immediate predecessors are from this area where the fringes of the Kalamarian Empire and now its successor states, the young kingdoms rub up against the cities of the Reanaara bay and the free fhokki clans along the Mountains of the east.

The first was a part Fhokki ranger who first moved to protect the scattered mountain communities from raiding bandits and slavers and then to recover his people from captivity and take them west to form a kingdom of the free in the wilds north of Cosdol where under the influence of the elves slavery was considerably less prominent. He was the one who first discovered the Hidden Dell and the High pass over the Laggosa Mountains. The kingdom flourished for a time but was finally over run by a strange human tribe known as the Aessi and its chief defender the champion slain. The region of the kingdom is now over run by hostile humanoids as well as being party still held by the Aessi

The Champion immediately previous to Violet was a wizard from this area though he travelled far in the pursuit of first his art and latter the cause of the Guardian ending up settling in the Hidden Dell, the Holdfast was in the first place his stronghold where he also founded a community for high value and very well known escaped slaves.  He espoused both the political cause of emancipation particularly in Kalamar where chattel slavery had been widespread since its expansion and where its economy and agriculture rested on large slave estates owned by absentee noble landlords. Under the current this practice was on the rise at the expense of free farmers and the more traditional serf farmers who whilst not free had some rights in law.

He also espoused the breaking of the slave market at first using his families considerable wealth and latter once he had developed the spell false gold coin which he would use to buy up salves at every opportunity and take them beyond the rule of the oppressor as he would have put it and allow them to make a life for themselves. In the end the agents of the Coin lord enraged at this practice hunted him down, whilst the agents of the overlord sat back and watched.


 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

part II


Violet
The first article gave a history of the champions of the free up until the death of the Magus of the Free a little four years ago when Violet took over the mantle. Violet had even before her ascension to the role of champion been active in aiding escaped slaves to reach places of safety mostly in the north and east in the foot hills of the mountains which decide the lands of the Kalamarians and the young kingdoms from the Reanaarese city states.. It was these lands Violet knew well and she knew all the passes over those mountains and hidden glens where a community of escapees might if they kept a low profile prosper in secret.
Violets main problem was her very otherness her appearance her eating habits hardly evoked trust and in the beginning only the most desperate accepted her aid, many seeing her as just another monster in the monster infested wild to which they had fled. However Violet persisted and slowly built up a net of contacts and eventually helpers who could mix with more normal society. Violet became bolder staged raids on plantation farms assassinated the crueler slave holders he ranger skills predatory nature often resulted in one perishing with an arrow in his throat. Even when surrounded by bodyguards. A child of a demon Violet could be ruthless and she spread fear in those who where her enemies. At the same time Violet was much more tolerant of the smaller farmers who held slaves because they always had and where for the most part seldom cruel to their slaves and often treated them as junior members of their extended family. These she encouraged to free their slaves quietly and to employ them as free men instead. Indeed on several occasions she actually bought slaves from such farmers who had fallen on hard times even if the silver with which she did this came form the coin boxes of slave traders she had treated much less gently.

Violet was thus a junior priest in the church of the Guardian when the call came and she took on the role of champion titling herself Paladin as this had a ring tom it which inspired the oppressed she felt. Shortly after receiving the call she met Perkal a young priest of the guardian who had worked with the Magus but had escaped the ambush where he was killed. Perkal told her of his old comrades work and this lead Violet to move her base of operations from the east where in all honesty it was becoming rather difficult to work as the authorities where hunting her as a bandit by this point. To the west operating form the Hidden Dell with Perkal as her companion.

Her raids where fewer now but often times much more spectacular, such as when she raided the house of damson blossoms where there where literally hundreds of girls being trained as dancers in the harems of the great and the powerful of Bet Kalamar. Nyasse was one of these girls and the only one to truly understand the boon Violet and Perkal had given her, however most of her raids where less spectacular being against the same sort of targets as she had struck at in the east and for a time all went very well.
Now, Perkal is dead, in a pointless skirmish with Orks and the evil against which she strives has come to her neighbourhood.


 Ginger