# Exodus of the Elves: A Trail of Fire



## Terwox (Nov 2, 2004)

Myrime pulled herself out of trance slowly, feeling the presence of her family in her room.  The room felt warm as she lazily opened her eyes, expecting her father, and she startled at the sight of her mother.

     Lossefalme, her mother, leaned in the entrance to Myrime's lean-to naked and shivering, despite the heat.  She glanced around for a moment, unfamiliar with her daughter's room, before speaking in a low whisper:

_"Words bind you,
Tongues are held,
Fate will encircle you,
Until the time for fate has passed.

The last of kin will speak,
Death forgets all bindings,
Even the oath of Avaquétima."_

Lossefalme turned, lightly walking away.

     Myrime mumbled a "..what?" before shrieking as she realized that her head was on fire.  She leapt from her mat, screaming for help, and sprinted out into the cool air of Tumbo Valley, flailing as she ran for a nearby spring.  She dove in head first.

     Needless to say, minutes later, a soaking wet and very confused Myrime went to go find her father, Mercas.

[ end update proper. ]

Better to start with the story, I think.  There's a bit of prologue to the story, but it was run as prologue, and I think I'll go through that part next.  Depends on what I feel like.  It's a homebrew with a few houserules, but the only player (Myrime) doesn't know them all, she only knows how her culture views them, so I'll describe them within the context of the story as they come up.

Anyway, rules-wise, Myrime is a gestalt bard/sorc, emphasis on mental stats, using spell points.  (Spell lists are pooled and given their basically psionic point values, spell points is just spells/level.)  It's worked rather well so far, and I think is oddly easier to understand for a new player than otherwise.  (Hey, at least, it works for me.)  I'm using the simpler parts of the lineage sorceror, although I think I'm going to keep familiars and chop some other parts of those rules up.

A few simple things:  Elves have white hair.  Tumbo Valley is the place the elves moved to when they withdrew from the rest of the world 2500 years ago.  Myrime has red hair, and is the only one.  Oh, in quenya, Mirime means "free one," Lossefalme means "white wave," and Mercas means "wish."  I'll post the meanings of the other character names as they are introduced.  (And Tumbo means valley.  Oh well!  )  There are a few other things I'll define later, when they won't spoil the story (for you, or the player.)

Much of the idea behind the game, although not the story was stolen from Sabriel, inspiration is drawn largely from the book of Exodus, a little bit here and there drawn from Sepulchrave, a bit of quest for glory 4 (or russian myth,) normal dark elf stuff spun a little bit funny, magestaffs from this board, lineage sorcerors helped, and there's a strong Wraith influence to some parts.  And some other stuff I can't place, but to my last homebrew and primarily its players I owe the majority of inspiration.  (This world is a new world, though.)

Anyway, if it interests you, stay tuned, I hope to update more this time around.  (My last campaign was just... too weird for me to handle writing, sometimes, and furthermore I didn't start until it was nearly over... backlog is a pressure.  This campaign is just starting to take off.)

Hah, I talked more ABOUT the game than actually spent time writing it up.  Oh well!  I'm going to attempt to have an update done by each Monday, no matter how short, as writing goals down helps motivation, and any small involvement will hopefully keep me motivated as well.  I hope the beginning caught your eye, if it didn't, I know something else you haven't read yet on the Story Hour boards will, so go look around.


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## Terwox (Nov 9, 2004)

Myrime walked quickly back to her lean-to, hugging the cold away, when she heard someone yelling.

"Myrime, are you alright?"  It was her friend Falea, who darted out from behind a tree, a laughed, saying "Myrime, you're soaking wet!  What happened?"

"Falea!  What happened!" Myrime gasped, noticing that Falea was wearing an eyepatch.

"Oh... I had a bad run-in with a bear... AHHHH, your head is on fire!" Falea screamed, who scooped up dirt and threw it at Myrime's head.

"What?  Oh, crap, not again!"  Something finally clicked in Myrime's head... and she simply willed the flames to go away.  Her waist-long red hair now appeared dry and clean, except for the clods of dirt on the top of her head.

"Myrime, what's going on..." Falea started, then tilted her head.  "Oh... she must have told you today, didn't she?"

"Yes..?"

"Oh."  Falea nodded knowingly, and shrugged.

Myrime shook her head, confused.  "I need to find my dad... let's go, ok?"

A frazzled Myrime and her friend Falea set out, searching the woods.

The two searched the woods of Tumbo together for about ten minutes, before deciding it was time to split up.

Myrime wandered through the woods slowly, calling her father's name, hoping to catch him while he was hunting.  She trudged in circles for quite awhile before she ended up at her old familiar clearing, that tree that was never in the same spot, that tree that had the spirit of an old ancestor of her's who had no name.

[ end update #2 proper. ]

Well, few notes this time.  I'm a lot less happy with my writing this time around, and I'm having trouble getting to the parts where it gets more interesting.  Ah well, might as well keep trudging along until I get to the more amusing parts.


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