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The Age of Broken Swords (6)

• Who are they? - The Naehsta - A Doomsday Cult - The Sixth and Final Keeper
The Naehsta grew as an offshoot of the worshippers of Sku, the triadic god of fertility, harvest, and death worshipped primarily in the fledgling nation of Ghant. The Naehsta believe that the past centuries of death and decay were signs of a great harvest, a reaping unlike the world had ever known. Naturally, they also believe that the harvest must be completed before the cycle can start anew. The Naehsta vary widely in size and shape, for they are a multitude of some dozens, but they know each other by their sign - a skull with a scythe fishhooked through the eyes, typically embroidered on clothing out of sight or worn as jewelry. The Naehsta recovered the Stack after burning the Archives of Vanail to the ground.
• Keeper Question - Describe their leader and the cataclysm they wish to trigger. - The leader of the Naehsta is a disgraced priest of Sku, whose apocalyptic views clashed with the cyclical doctrine of fertility, harvest, and death. Her name is Shayna. She is plump, with rosy red cheeks and dimples when she smiles. She has the sign of the Naehsta tattooed from shoulder to shoulder, with the skull's jaw hanging open on her sternum. She is bitter, likeable, stolid, and confident. The Naehsta wish to trigger the movement from harvest to fertility, bringing around the world anew and breathing live back into the desolated lands. They believe that to do so, they must usher in one final reaping that will be able to seed the future. In fewer words, they want to speed things along.
• Keeper Question - How were you exploited in their desperate, wretched ritual? - Once the Naehsta realized they held the Stack, they held council to decide what to do with it. A fell idea was born. One by one, the acolytes began to draw Pages from the already-thin Stack, tearing them up as they went. Eventually, they drew the final one.
• How did the Keeper lose or relinquish the artefact? - The waltz between Time and their world ended. And so ended everything, as well.

Victories and Valour -

Your Keeper defeated their sworn, bitter rival in a duel. Where did the contest take place and why was the animosity so severe? How did you help them win? Shayna never forgot or forgave the worshippers of Sku for defrocking her. She promised herself a reaping of her own, she took it. The Naehsta besieged the temple of Sku. They sealed the ministry and unlucky adherents in the heavy walls and left them to a grim and hungry fate. The ruination of the temples of Sku was only made possible through the experimental, first draw of an Page of the Stack - it showed Shayna how to proceed and revealed to her the power she'd recovered from the ashes of Vanail.

Fate

Artefact Question - You are immortal; fate will never touch you. What do you wish you could tell your Keepers about the true nature of destiny? Though the Stack had been depleted over the centuries of it's existence, it has never been susceptible to the vagaries of time. When the world ended, all that remained was the bits of the Stack that had been pulled out over the years, floating in an empty, endless void of unTime. Eventually they were drawn together again - even a void, or perhaps mostly in a void, gravity is still gravity.

It was only in this newly manifested form, a wad of gauzy tears and mishmashed colour, that the Stack gained a measure of sentience. Over the still-short first few centuries of its life, it had tangoed almost exclusively with mortals. At times, it had two-stepped with their varied, but inevitable fates and observed them from the sidelines at others. It watched the rise of their ideals and the collapse of their vices.

The Stack reflected on all those that had been creases on it's Pages there in the void. Though it was far too little and far too late, it spared them the following thoughts.

"You're beautiful."

"I'm sorry."

Time

The dance is over. Time must choose a new song.

Ongoing World Notes

Dramatis Personae

• Oktahn, the Merchant-Revolutionary - he/him - The first Keeper. Destined to fail, Oktahn's burning ideals of self-determination were quickly snuffed by an unyielding social inertia. While he was able to open the doors to magical academia to some, this drop of change was a mere drop in the bucket of blood his actions wrought.
• IX/LXI of Family Ghant, the Young Noble - they/them - The second Keeper. They used the power of the Stack to bring their siblings to political heel and pulled their lands into a golden age.
• Perry, The Bandit King - one/ones - The third Keeper. Grasping Athera by the throat, Perry rose to prominence first as an outlaw and then as the law. One succeeded where Oktahn failed, toppling Athera's social order before taking the nation in one's iron grip.
• trIX the Bloodied, the All-Conquering Warlord - she/they - The fourth Keeper. They sought to unify a shattered Athera and were struck down in their prime.
• Teo, Time's Own, the Archivist-Collector - he/him - The fifth Keeper. He pulled a Page unbroken from the Stack and burst into confetti a year later.
• The Naehsta, the Doomsday Cult - they/them (plural) - The sixth and final Keeper. They drew the final Page from the Stack and got exactly what they wanted.
• Time - she/they/it - Time. A celebratory, mythological figure depicted most often in a ball gown with an expansive train. Associated with party favours, such as streamers, confetti, sparklers, etc.
• Cialo the Indebted - she/her - An archmage who is best known for creating the Stack by stealing cutouts of Time's skirt. She was cast into timeless debt for this theft, and now attends Time's gowns. She is often depicted with a demon at her heel, offering her pins from a bloody mouth.

World

• Athera - A culture/nation rooted in determinism and fate, where individuals are born, live, and die in the shadows of their family. They reject the concept of social mobility in entirety, and punishment for transgression is corporeal. In the two centuries following the Turning, Athera declined rapidly, eventually breaking off into a number of smaller kingdoms.
• Filarin - A culture/nation that shares a border with Athera.
• Parlth - An addictive street drug, readily available to even the most disenfranchised. It stains the whites of eyes pink-red with blood loosed from veins.
• Pox Psora - A plague prevalent among those living in poverty, Pox Psora. The primary symptom of the pox is the itch - an irrepressible, full body itching that sits below the subcutaneous layer. Those afflicted are driven to scratch themselves beyond raw, lacerating their skin over and over seeking relief. It can not be alleviated by means magical or mundane. Pox Psora has a 15% mortality and 95% morbidity rate. Mortality rate skyrockets to 40% if an afflicted party is allowed to scratch themselves unimpeded, typically as a result of opportunistic infections, blood loss, and/or dehydration. The full course of an infection runs over 10-13 days and reinfection is rare.
• The Turning - A historical event denoting the overthrow of the previous Atheran sociocultural order during Perry's time as Keeper - similar in consequence to the Russian Revolution.
• Sku - A triadic god of fertility, harvest, and death. They were worshipped in former Athera, in what is now the kingdom of Ghant.

Takeaways

Reflections

• That is easily the best skull I've ever freehanded.