just_writing | In strictest copycat mode:

pax_draconis took the opportunity to post up the highlights of some of the characters he wrote for NWO Rome. Of everything I've ever written for NWO, Galerius from NWO Transylvania is the one of which I'm most proud, so here are some of the highlights.

Inevitably, it will mean nothing to anyone who hasn't played in an NWO game.

OF MEMORIES PAST

Oh, the memories I have. The stories I could tell if only people would listen. But at best they regard me as a romancer, at worst an outright liar.

Oh, but they're wrong; so wrong.

I could tell them of the long winter, the years when the ice covered the whole of the north, winter and summer. Of the great beasts covered in thick fur and coarse hair, of the men hiding in caves and wearing skins. Of the lowlands now lost beneath the waves. Of the land route from Europa to Aethiopia, through the great depression and past the salt lakes.

But they would not believe me.

So then, how to tell the stories of the warm shallow seas, the forests of trees unlike any now growing. Of the Great Lizards which held dominion before man? Would they believe in the skies of fire, the agonies of the Mother and the death throes of these beasts?

Drunken fantasy, they would say.

But I remember. I remember what I was; I remember what I am. And I am diminished.

And if they will not believe this, when there is evidence for those with eyes to see, and minds to think, they will not believe the truth about the beginning. The beginning when the Mother was young and I was as yet a babe; when the lands were fluid, the skies yellow and the oceans unborn. When I was shepherd of mountains, guide of winds, master of rains and cleanser of impurity.

But those days are gone, and I am diminished. In my reduced state I may command the earth as the Mother permits, but the winds sing other songs, the rains and oceans keep their own council, and the lightning of the sky, the fires of the world heed other voices.

These men, these wizards, these Magi. In their own limited fashion, they have dominion though none can call on the powers of the Mother as can I when the soils, the rock, the metals and the very earth must move. But now they surpass me with air, fire and water.

But I am diminished.

Why then should they believe my stories?

Why should they believe when I tell of the great battle before time when the blackness screamed, when the Mother trembled and when I fought to preserve her? Of the haze, the frustration and confusion. The cold, dark nights. The eyes in the void looking down. Darkly malevolent, strangely detached. Chaos. Of the fear and defiance. The struggle. And finally, the blinding flash; the withering heat, blinding light. The falling of the pillars, the roar of the sea and the flooding of the deep basin. A sundering, but new freedom.

But diminution, for even as I remember the unknowable, no longer can I do these things. The greater portion of my strength has fled me and I am diminished.

Still, before I get too maudlin, let me remember my manners. More wine, my friend?

OF TRAVELLING AND OF SETTLING

Men are transient, fragile things. They live their lives like brief, hot flames that flare, shine, dwindle, sputter and die in a short span of rarely more than seventy years. To remain in one place too long is to invite scrutiny and, perhaps superstitious fear. Best then to move on. To travel, returning if ever, only after a safe space of years.

I have travelled the length and the breadth of the world over the span of millennia. Always a stranger who knows much, but one who has missed much. I have, perforce become a student of the human condition for despite our differences; they are the closest to kin I have. Closer even, than the Ghob or the Trolls, earth creatures of the cold far north. So I dwell among them. Close but apart, a student of but divorced from the human condition. An observer who occasionally intervenes.

A hundred or so years ago my travels brought me back to the place they call Europa after many years in the East and across the unnamed oceans. Much had changed and nothing had changed. Rome, a growing Empire when I left had both waxed and waned in the meantime. Though in the east, on the shores of the New Sea, their inheritors maintain a shadow of their society and civilisation. In the west and the north either that civilisation had either never reached or had disappeared without trace. But more importantly, for the first time in many, many years there was developing a stratum of society inhabited by people who called themselves magi, people of power who lived as a society within a society across the length and breadth of the peninsula they call Europa. A society which practices magicks and to whom differences and strangeness are common place and un-remarked. A place to rest from travel for a while without needing to remain hidden in the background. A society where I can blend and listen to the songs of men and learn their ways. A society where the ear of the Mother commands respect rather than fear. Though to present it in those terms would be beyond their understanding, so I have adopted their words, their songs. For to challenge the music they make is to prevent it and they could not do what they do if the Mother wished otherwise.

Of course, actually joining such a society, or Order as they (or should I say 'we'?) term themselves is normally comparatively difficult, but I had chance on my side, though I did not know it at the time. The Order of Hermes was recovering from an internecine struggle they call the Schism War, and I arrived in the immediate aftermath. So with a little study of their ways and a subterfuge or two I managed to pass myself off as a member of the House of Tremere. The Tremere having been badly mauled though victorious in the struggle. By chance, records were lost and I stepped into one of the gaps. And after a time, such was the general abhorrence for discussion of that period, my claims went unchallenged. Surely the Mother was looking over Her child that day.

I can see you are still sceptical, my friend, but it's all true. Let me get another bottle and I'll tell you more.