Kallyr Starbrow: Jane's story

(This is how I intended to use Kallyr in a game or two I was running. I never published it back then. Very much based on my RQ 3 stats for Kallyr aged 16-ish)
Born 1582, only daughter of Eneirin Ironeye, clan chief, and Loricon, clan healer (and step-son of Terasarin).
A happy and secure childhood, learning healing from her father and grandmother, and combat and leadership from her mother. Yearly visits to Boldhome, during which she tolerated Hindala's fussing and hated Terasarin's attempts to buy her loyalty from her father. On one visit she overheard him insulting her father and challenged him to a duel (and meant it). A good deal of her hatred for him, whether she admits it or not, is because on that occassion he refused to take her seriously.

Aged 14, attended the Swenstown Festival as usual and won the female side of the kiddies games. This puts her in the Voria position for the big ceremony (though with no depth required), and in close contact with the boy who wins his games and gets the Voriof slot. They get on very well, and exchange rings (horsehair from him, a lock of her hair from her). On the way home, his group is attacked by Bison riders and he is believed to have ben killed. (In fact he's been taken prisoner, and will appear again many years in the future as Argrath White Bull, but no-one in Sartar knows that). This encounter finalises her decision to follow her mother's career path rather than her father's. She sees prevention as better than cure, and you can't heal someone when you can't even find the body.

1597, initiated into the clan (Ernalda). Went to Tarthcaer for training and initiation as a Vingan warrior, then with her father to Boldhome, where she became an initiate of Sartar. Yet another quarrel with Terasarin. Left for Pavis as a caravan guard. (The journey will be in company with some PCs, so we'll see what happens. I think one of the senior guards will take her under his wing and try to teach her on the way: certainly he'll point out the strategic possibilities of Dangerford in PC hearing).

In Pavis, soon attached to the Vingan temple: she is rather more pious than the average adventurer, and also the temple staff reckon she's really too young to be allowed out without a keeper. Since she's learnt enough about healing to be useful, they let her tag along on Rubble trips without really counting her as one of the fighters. I expect her to make a lot of friends among the PCs and to get them into a lot of trouble: she keeps trying to prove how competent she is, and as yet she isn't. She will spend a fair amount of time doing extra temple duties to pay for training: guard duty on Healers on circuit is a common duty, and makes the most of her skills.

1598 - maybe late '97 - befriends the young Vega Goldbreath and arranges for her to get her first lessons in combat. Vega eventually gets initiated into Yelmalio as a result.

At some point in this period (PC-dependent), she will get badly injured: bad enough to need a few weeks out of action recovering. In an attempt to keep her out of trouble, she gets given temple duty for a bit: since she's literate, she can stock-take all temple stores and re-write half the records. Boring..... except she gets fascinated by the details of ceremony and proves to be quite good at organisation. All that time watching her mother run a clan must have come in useful. As a result, when Aelflaed is away for a bit she ends up as defacto 2IC: the junior, but also the only one who knows what's going on. This position effectively sticks: there's some resentment, but none of the other initiates wanted the job anyway.

1600 - Terasarin dies, and there's some confusion over who's going to be the next High King. As she's about to leave for home, she gets a message from her mother effectively ordering her to stay away until it's over. So the hassle Salinarg has getting crowned isn't due to her sabotage: but without that order, it probably would have been. He's Terasarin's favourite, "what I wish my sons were like", and bullies his children (how else do you think an eight-year-old gets to be a Sword of Humakt?). She can't stand him.

1601: she qualifies as Daughter of Vinga. There's some query on this, since she is very young (19), and so the HQs required to qualify are a bit tougher than normal.

Later, 1601, visits Tarthcaer to obtain an allied spirit (Pavis, as a small and new temple, doesn't have too many of these). Visits her parents at the same time, and takes along any young adventurers who want to visit Sartar. General joyful reunion: just one point of conflict. In cult terms Kallyr now out-ranks her mother (and clan chief) completely.

Back to Pavis to resume her duties as a junior priestess of Vinga: Aelflaed is giving her as much experience as possible. She works her way through as many of the low-level Vingan HeroQuests as she can get her hands on, and proves to have a real flair for the job. It is during this stage that she is called on to do the "rescue" HQ I describe in the "Polaris" section: her first "real" HQ rather than a practise run through known myths.

1602, and in her usual optimistic way she is untroubled by rumours from Sartar. Since acquiring her link with Polaris she has been finding out more about his cult, and has heard of some crystals of his blood far out in the Wastes. She takes a party out there. On the way back: well, we all know what happens in 1602. She is an initiate of Sartar, if not a very committed one, and feels the Flame go out as it happens. She could take Mastakos's Chariot back to Pavis (or even Boldhome? Tarthcaer?), but she has a group of adventurers with her whom she can't just abandon in the wastes. So by the time she rides back into Pavis it's all over. Her friends there know what has happened in Sartar, and various Divinations have shown roughly what happened to her family. In particular, a healer friend has inquired about her old friend Loricon, and has got some information from that (though he died before seeing all the messy details).

Knowing her mother was still a Vingan initiate (though no longer a full Warrior), Kallyr tries her own Divination: she's always been good at this. Too good for comfort, on this occasion. Her question is "Show me how my mother died". And as a response she gets a full eye-witness view of exactly what happened. After some friends have picked her up (she may even have had one of them in mind-link with her, as a witness), she makes the most of the excessive detail supplied. Names, ranks, and descriptions of all the Lunars involved go on to a hit list. Researching some of these will require help: more jobs for PCs!

The next few years will be spent hunting down each and every Lunar on the list and killing them. They start off thinking the group has bad luck: then they start to get scared. The group is split up: and they keep on dying by various means. Other groups don't want anything to do with them: Jonahs. Eventually the Lunar higher-ups get interested, and the commanding officer is ordered back for court-martial. The trial drags on (Princess Anderidia is very much against the accused), and the last few underlings get killed. Finally we get a big court scene at the end of which he is reprimanded for excessive zeal and demoted. He leaves, only to be treated to Orlanthi justice (i.e. beheading) on the steps of the court-house. In full view of a huge Lunar crowd, naturally. She then teleports back to Pavis, taking his head with her.


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