Time-Lost Witnesses

"…"

Many medieval tales speak of people whisked away by the faeries, who dance for a few hours, and return to find that each hour in Faerie was a year, or a century. Many of these misplaced people perish; they break a taboo placed upon them as they leave faerie, and they are crushed as a lifetime of aging pours over them in an instant. Some discover that they have died and faded to dust in Faerie, becoming faeries themselves without noticing. Some begin their mortal lives anew, centuries after all that they know has fallen into ruin.

Time-lost characters allow players to add anachronistic touches to their version of Mythic Europe. The time-lost characters described here are grogs, but companions are also easily accommodated in many sagas. Timelost magi are more difficult to design. The Order of Hermes is a researchbased institution, and there is no way to consistently model how its many breakthroughs have contributed to

the Art and spell levels in the standard setting. This means there is no way to handicap magi accurately for failing to share those breakthroughs.

Faeries may steal characters from any location, and from any historical era. People who witness momentous events are more likely to be stolen away, then returned, than others. House Merinita suggests that this is because such events enter human folklore and resound down the centuries.

Time-lost characters face many initial difficulties. They often have poor language skills, which may prevent them seeking aid in mundane communities. Their Abilities may not suit the local economy, which may make it difficult to find work. They are unlikely to understand what has occurred, and may spend time on fruitless attempts to return home. Service to a covenant gives a time-lost character a chance to reorientate and learn local languages.

Magi interested in history desire time-lost people as covenfolk. Those who do not care for history know that many of their sodales do, and are willing to pay handsomely in vis and political favors for eyewitnesses to interesting historical events. Magi can read the memories of these events and, using the correct spells, feel everything that the eyewitness felt, which is as close as possible to being there. On a less aesthetic level, Seekers can sift the memories of witnesses for clues to the location of magical devices and sacred sites.

These notes will help you create a Time-lost Witness character.

The following story seeds use people from particular places and times, but can be easily adapted to refuges from other fallen civilizations or historical eras.

A churchman contacts a redcap whom he knows collects rare books. On being invested in his office, the churchman took a tour of the facilities in his care. One is a home for demoniacs — people afflicted in the mind by the forces of evil. Within this refuge, he found a woman who speaks only gibberish, but seems lucid. The curate for the facility told the churchman that the demoniac was found wandering the roads, and had in her possession a curious scroll, filled with strange pictures.

Characters who investigate the scroll discover that it is made of plant fiber, but is not paper. This is highly unusual. It contains a series of pictures, but by their repetition, these seem to form a code. Characters familiar with the works of Herodotus (Intelligence + Artes Liberales against an Ease Factor of 15) may recall that the ancient Egyptians wrote like this.

Characters who use magic to speak with the demoniac discover that her name is Sacmis, and she was a copyist at the Great Library of Alexandria. When part of it caught fire, as the Romans invaded the city, she was whisked away by a flying creature, and deposited on the roads in this chilly, savage country.

Sacmis is interesting to the player characters for several reasons. Magi engrossed by history would love to interview her. Seekers would like her aid to determine the locations of the great libraries of the ancient world, and as a translator for the text of the ancients. A handful of the spells held by House Bonisagus are from the period, but how the verbal components are incanted is not clear. Members of House Merinita value her scroll, because it contains the final copy of many ancient stories about magicians. One of these is the "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor," which is the origin myth of the sorcerers of the island of Soqotra.

Alarming reports have reached the town of an army that has fortified a mountain pass slightly to the northwest. The invaders have made no demands, and beyond levying a toll on passing merchants, they appear to be doing little. Noblemen and magi skilled in military matters are likely to guess, correctly, that the invaders have formed a defensive position, and are sending scouts into the nearby territory. This force is acting like the beach-head for an invader, and so the region prepares for war.

Characters who question the merchants who have paid a toll to pass the encamped army can gather some intelligence. The tax is in goods, and is requested from the merchants by a priest who speaks the local language. The priest says he is a captive of the invaders. The invaders speak Latin among themselves. Their camp is a wooden stockade with ditches around it. It has been laid out geometrically, like something from an ancient strategy manual.

Magi may immediately assume this is a Hermetic plot. Only members of the Order have sufficient interest in the ancient empire to recreate a section of its military. The disruption this is causing is

Time-lost characters can come from any era, and so can have a wide variety of Abilities, Virtues, and Flaws. As examples, this section uses Roman legionaries lost in a faerie wood, who re-emerge in 1220. These grogs require the Warrior Virtue, and must take the Worthless Abilities Flaw.

Time-lost Witnesses may come

from any background, and therefore may have any Ability. They are usually selected for abduction and return because their memories or skills will create interesting stories, so unusual skill sets are common among these characters.

Time-lost characters may come from any social group, and so their careers following their return may follow any path.

Using Roman legionaries as examples, this set of Abilities requires the Warrior Virtue:

ABILITIES AT AGE 21: Animal Handling 1 (pack animals), Athletics 3 (marching), Awareness 3 (in battle), Bargain 1 (drink), Brawl 3 (grappling), Carouse 2 (looking sober), Etiquette 1 (military), Latin 5 (cursing), Profession: Legionary 3 (not getting caught), Organization Law: Roman Army

enough to make it a High Crime. The magi might instead assume this is an elaborate faerie game, since a significant occasion has recently passed. In truth, the significant day weakened the barriers between Faerie and the real world, allowing this group to escape.

The Roman commander, noticing a sudden change in landforms, has encamped his eighty men in a well-defended position where they can get water from a stream. They have some supplies, which are extended by foraging and taxing passing traders. He is sending out scouts to get the lay of the land. Following this, he is going to march toward the largest city, to re-establish his connection with the army's command structure. This will be met, by the confused locals, as if it were an invasion.

Player characters can most easily intervene in this scenario by capturing and then negotiating with one of the Roman scouts. The Roman commander, if convinced the empire is gone, may wish to use his force to conquer a significant town, to supply his army and act as the kernel of a new empire. He may seek out the Emperor of Nicaea, to offer the swords of his men to the leader of the modern Romans. He may accept the Order as the heir to the legacy of Rome, and enter service.

Faeries love games involving social roles. The return of a character central to a great tragedy can allow them to play interesting games. In 1120, William Adelin, the only legitimate son of Henry I of England, vanished during a shipwreck. He was considered dead and, after his death, the realm fell into anarchy as his cousin and sister fought for dominance. Following this turbulence, a line of sacramentallycrowned kings continued until the incumbent king.

Henry III has not been crowned king of England in the correct way. His father lost the Crown Jewels during his wars with the nobility. At his father's death, Henry was hastily crowned with a piece of his mother's jewelry, by the Bishop of Gloucester. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who has the right and duty to crown the king, was supporting Louis of France, who had invaded England and held London. Even the Pope says that Henry has not been crowned properly — there is no King of England, in a mystical sense.

This makes William Adelin the perfect pawn in a rags-to-riches story, but few faeries have the power to make kings anymore. What happens instead is that many faerie princes treat him as if he were King of England. They send him weird gifts, and they ask for strange treaties. The magi who control access to William have many opportunities for profit, but must act carefully: every gift must be matched with a gift of equal value, from the distorted perspective of the faerie that sent it, and every agreement made must be upheld, in some contorted way.

William's shipload of servants and warriors has difficulty interacting with the modern world. They speak a variant of French which is understandable, if accented. They are an older sort of Norman, ruthless Christianized Vikings, whose society is built around territorial expansion and plunder. Their society can't find victims in the rapidly urbanizing, heavily armed states of the 13th century.

3* (own legion), Survival 2 (in a group), Swim 2 (in armor), Single Weapon 5 (gladius), Thrown Weapon 4 (pilum)

ABILITIES AT AGE 30: Animal Handling 1 (pack animals), Athletics 3 (marching), Awareness 3 (in battle), Bargain 1 (drink), Brawl 3 (grappling), Carouse 3 (looking sober), Etiquette 1 (military), Latin 5 (cursing), Profession: Legionary 5 (not getting caught), Organization Lore: Roman Army 3* (own legion), Survival 3 (in a group), Swim 2 (in armor), Single Weapon 6 (gladius), Teaching 3 (Single Weapon), Thrown Weapon 4 (pilum)

* See the Worthless Ability Flaw, in Chapter 6.

Time-lost characters have been personally selected by faeries to be removed from time, then released, at a particular moment and in a particular place, to cause interesting stories to be told. They have, therefore, an unusual range of Virtues, and these may suit the covenant's needs in a particular saga with an eerie exactness. Time-lost characters may suffer a Delusion that they can return to their own time.