by Moe BalingerA handful of children from a peaceful town in bumfuck Isendel find themselves marked by constellations by one of them, who turns out to be the last Aasimar in the world, and their hometown burned by the Painted Swans. Their journey to escape and find out what’s going on leads them to ever-larger and ever-darker cities as they travel north, and many of them don’t make it along the way.
Spanned from roughly Year 211 to Year 216 on the Ithar calendar.
The Star-Touched
Bax Demir: The smelly child.
Danica Thorne: The spirited child.
Emma Spinsugar: The know-it-all child.
Ethan Fairchild: The scapegoat child.
Garbon Tutonson: The clever child.
Lumotu Musket: The imaginative child.
S’olenroux “Roux” Faux: The oldest child.
Rowen Baleburn: The big-boned child.
Sor’rel: The cursed elven child (1/2).
Lae’sireli: The other cursed elven child (2/2).
Talith Elinasti: The cheerful but not-as-good-as-his-sister child.
Events
Summer, 212
The stars return to the night sky after centuries and among the debris of the shattered moon an enormous octahedral object appears in the vacancy left by the moon. This object will later be called the Octurne by the people of the world. The stars are first seen by a group of children outside of a small backwater town called Aelorean’s Crossing in the Barony of Isendel, a place severely distrusting of witchcraft.
Essential Character Backstory Notes:
- Roland Fairchild is the older brother of Ethan Fairchild.
- Vivian is the older sister of Talith and she ran away from home years before.
- Danica knows little about her biological parents.
- Garbon Tutonson is a studious taker of notes.
- Talith is always cheerful, despite his strict parents.
- Bax Demir lives at the edge of town near Abram’s Lake, named for his father.
- Jon Fairchild, Ethan’s uncle, suffers from dementia.
- It is revealed that a blight has come to the crops of Aelorean’s Crossing.
During an encounter with an irkling at the edge of the Fading Wood, Danica Thorne is revealed to her friends to be what they would describe as an angel (aasimar), a secret she and her adoptive two fathers had kept her entire life, told that she was found at the site of a falling star. Rowen Baleburn is badly wounded during the encounter. They flee to Danica’s parents for help.
The children are sent to hide at Oak Keep at the edge of the forest after it is learned that the Painted Swan army was seen conscripting the young and able-bodied from neighboring towns.
A detachment of Painted Swan forces lead by an army captain named Kelwin occupy the town of Aelorean’s Crossing. They take volunteers for the army, calling upon the local people for aid, but days later begin conscripting townspeople by force, and even executing those who resist. The entire Fairchild family (aside from Ethan) volunteer to serve.
While in hiding, Emma Spinsugar is sketching the new stars, and accidentally discovers that she has the ability to create magic by drawing constellations. It is the first encounter with real magic, aside from the revelation of Danica Thorne’s Aasimar nature.
Garbon is captured by a Painted Swan named Ceres, Kelwin’s daughter. The other children move to rescue Garbon and in the process Ceres is killed and Garbon is rescued, along with Lumotu’s father who succumbs to his wounds and dies, and a stranger named Rye. He reveals himself to be a bandit, wanted for theft, and offers to take the children to his camp and train them to fight as thanks for saving his life. The children join the Red Bandana Bandits.
Through the Autumn and Winter the children are trained by Rye and have additional encounters with the Painted Swans, stealing equipment, and eventually deciding to take back Aelorean’s Crossing. The blight has become worse. It’s during this time it is revealed that each of the children, aside from Ethan and Danica, are developing constellations associated with them and their magic.
- Rowen Baleburn : Bear
- Garbon Tutonson : Octopus
- Solenroux Faux : Fox
- Emma Spinsugar : Beacon
- Talith Elinasti : Champion
- Bax Demir : Hunter
One of the children, Tolan Ward, is killed by a creature in the Fading Wood they will come to call the Man Face Cat. The creature steals Tolan’s face, speaks in his voice, and escapes into the forest.
It is revealed that Talith’s parents were torturing him and his sister.
- Story: Revealing Secrets | Summer 205 / Winter 212 | Talith reveals what actually went on at home. (Talith)
The bandits capture a Painted Swan soldier who reveals that one of Kelwin’s ulterior motives in coming to Aelorean’s Crossing is to find a woman who matches Danica’s description. It is revealed he is following information searching for Danica’s mother. Ethan, Talith, and Lumotu execute the soldier in Horseshoe Ravine.
The bandits capture another Painted Swan soldier named Saren. He refuses to endanger his fellow soldiers, but speaks of a girl he is meant to marry named Gloria who lives in a small town called Selig. Bax Demir promises to deliver a letter to Gloria, before executing Saren.
The children discover two new companions nearly drowned in the river that runs near the bandit camp, Lae’Sireli and her twin sister Sor’rel, Fading Wood Elves with hued skin, horns, and tails, fleeing from the persecution of their families, who hunt them for being cursed and blaming them for the Blight.
- Stories:
- Lumotu’s Orb Dream | Y212 | Dreams of mines and orbs. (Lumotu)
- Nothing Won Without a Price | Winter 212 | A moment of calm and assessment. (Rye and Korene)
Bax Demir is captured by Kelwin and the children move to rescue him and retake Aelorean’s Crossing. They are victorious, but portions of the town are burned. In the aftermath, Danica is captured by Kelwin, who sacrificed hold on the town as a ploy to isolate her, but Rye intercedes and buys time for the others to help.
The children, along with Rye and Danica’s father Consus Thorne, square off against Kelwin. They are able to defeat Kelwin, but instead of being killed, he reveals a magical feather encased in amber that resonates with Danica’s magic. He uses it to cast lightning into the children and escapes by teleporting away with Consus.
The children investigate information left behind in the wake of the destruction of their lives and learn some vital information…
Danica’s mother was an Aasimar, called Ana by the people. She battled a terrible creature with help of Consus and Eirlys Thorne, Jon Fairchild, Arlo Faux, Caern Baleburn, Paloma Shale, Adelard Sylas, a Fading Wood Elf named Se’aldar, and others indecipherable.
Jon Fairchild was wounded by the beast and poisoned by something they could not cure.
Ana and the others were commended by Hein Isendel as heroes. Ana gave Hein Isendel three of her feathers as a token of their friendship and a reminder that magic could be used for good, despite the Isendelian fear and hatred of magic and witchcraft. The heroes then retired to quiet lives.
Jon Fairchild left behind a handful of magic items called the Fairchild Legacy.
Talith learned that his sister, Vivian, did not run away. She was killed by their parents when she decided to try to take Talith and run away. It was after she vanished that they began to torment Talith in her place. Talith learns that his parents began to worship something they did not entirely understand, but believed that the torment of Vivian and later Talith would make them worthy of the blessings of a god. It was Vivian’s murder in fact that became the moment of birth of a new god called the Suffering.
Danica and the others find notes that lead them to Abram’s Lake where they discover Aasimar Ruins sunken beneath the lake. They learn that Ana was an Aasimar named Anavyn’dralin and was the last of her people. She fell in love with Eirlys and Consus and nearing the end of her life, used their love, at the loss of her own life, to be reborn as Danica.
Caern Baleburn, Rowen’s Father, left Aelorean’s Crossing to seek a cure for Jon Fairchild. He traveled north to the land of Jorung to seek out an old ally there.
Sor’rel and Lae’Sireli’s brother, Al’Rowan, promised to meet them at the high mountains in the North.
Rye, having fulfilled his debt to the children, steals their money and leaves them a note, saying that he has gone south to Kharakhan and they can find him if they want their money back.
Winter, 212
The children abandon Aelorean’s Crossing, delivering the townsfolk survivors to safe towns as they travel north to escape the Painted Swans and to find Caern Baleburn and Al’Rowan. The trip will take years, and they grow as people along the way.
- Stories:
- Roux Says Goodbye to His Dad | Winter 212, just after retaking Aelorean’s Crossing | One last punch, and a gifted medallion from his mother.
Summer, 213
They stop first in the city of Rinsfeld, a place of incredibly harsh laws and powerful magistrates. It’s here that they begin to learn more about themselves and ways to earn money they will need for their journey northward.
Ethan stumbles his way into his first encounter with the Copper Blind, a long established organization that acts as intermediary between those with coin and in need of questionable deeds and those with the capacity to deliver. Lae’Sireli accidentally kills a man who accosts her in an alleyway and Ethan helps her hide the body.
Garbon Tutonson helps the others by doing research in the towns and cities along the route. He is able to verify that the stars of ancient legend are different from those in the sky above now, as well as connect some clues for Sireli and Sor’rel that refer to a creature called the Leviathan and the Cult of the Sovereign Tide.
After leaving Rinsfeld, on the road between that city and the next, the children are caught-up-with by a hunting party of Fading Wood Elves, the Ru’arathuiel, the Demon Hunters. They engage the elves in a losing battle, escaping across a bridge and destroying it, but only before Se’aldar, Sor’rel and Sireli’s father and once-friend of Ana, fires a magical arrow that kills Sor’rel and as a result lifts Sireli’s curse changing her into a traditional Fading Wood Elf. Bax Demir and Rowen Baleburn swear vengeance against Se’aldar, but the children flee to the north.
- Story:
- The Fangs of Se’aldar | Summer 213 | An arrow for a life. (Sor’rel, Sireli, Se’aldar)
Autumn, 214
- Story:
- Staff of the Moray | Y213 / 214 | Making a new friend. (Lumotu)
The survivors of Aelorean’s Crossing reach the city of Last Harbor, a port city with little in the way of laws, where the nobles look out for themselves and the common people must fend for themselves and negotiate their own methods of survival and prosperity.
Ethan by this point, after his experiences in Rinsfeld, has begun to work with the Copper Blind and in the end takes a contract for a mere pittance of coin that leads him to kill a man named Paderson Bishop, a murderer with a gruesome reputation.
Sireli, broken by the death of her sister, begins to linger in the alleys in the nights of Last Harbor, murdering men who would take advantage of the vulnerable or hire prositutes. Ethan, taking a contract to find and stop the murder, is lead to a confrontation with Sireli, but keeps her secret.
They continue northward, and in Spring 216, finally make it to Northgate…