Silas

Silas has a conspiracy corner here.

1. Backstory I grew up on one of the islands a days sail or two north of Monsoth on a scrub farm.  Your father and mother at various times went on long trips to collect skins, which they’d sell in Monsoth.  During the winters, I remember my father carving ivory from walrus tusks etc. into things like chess pieces, whistles and flutes, smoking pipes, also to sell.  He was a skilled carver.

One of my earliest memories was out seal hunting with my family. I was about five, and they let us come along on the hunt, though I’m not sure why. At one point during the trek, we climbed the lone mountain at the edge of the bay, and saw a large lake on the other side, taking in the view, when the storm blew in without warning. We took shelter in a cave in the mountain side. My mother lit a fire and taught us how to keep it burning. I can’t remember the exact details as I was young, but my parents must have gone out into the storm to find more wood. They never returned though and we assumed they were lost to the storm. I’ve never really known what happened to them. I do however recall that they wrapped me in your father’s bearskin cloak, and they wrapped Seren in your mother’s cloak of arctic fox skins. We must have been trapped for a long while, but after a time I remember trying to dig out of the snow packed cave mouth. Seren and I were separated. I recall another avalanche, and then blackness.

My next waking vision was of a man with kindly eyes placing another blanket on me. When I came to fully, I learned that I had been found by a clan of druids. I told them of my sister, but they hadn’t found anyone else amongst the avalanche’s track.

Over time, I was raised by this clan of druids, and as they did, I came to worship nature and believe in a kind of animism with greater spirits / angels represented by old, only partially anthropomorphised forces. We believe ourselves to be wiser as a people than the people who live in the cities on the coast.  We live traveling seasonally up and down the river - though we do our best to hide from the people along the coast, who have only heard rumors of our clan.  We’ve come to understand also that we have been here longer than they have, and that they are “new comers”, or “followers” - though long ago we did come over the ocean, just as they did.

I’m relatively young, between 16 and 18, and for my initiation, I was brought to a place deep in the forest - I don’t know how to get there, as I was drugged / blindfolded as part of the ritual - where there was a henge.  (Note that a henge has an inner ditch and an outer bank - the opposite of a defensive earthwork.)  In the middle of the henge there was a burial mound, and I was taken to the top of the mound for the ritual, which I do not entirely remember but it involved looking at the stars.  I can’t remember details, but I do feel as though I  experienced a great truth.  I was initiated into the druid order because they see something in me, but I don’t necessarily know what it is. I have kept the rock and it’s properties secret from them, as far as I know.

I’m in Monsoth, because I’ve been asked by the elders to investigate rumors of a monastery built on the side of the tallest mountain in the range, and to see if it has anything to do with the black stream, which I’ve noticed the elders being nervous about, but I know nothing about it for certain. Another of my fellow druids was sent north to investigate a hermit who lives by a vast lake in the taiga, and who can apparently act as a blacksmith.

1. Culture A song that Silas heard some of the druidic women singing while going down to the river in the morning. It always made him think of rain and mist on the river.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TA6-RfCIyNMSOzrfmhdeQ0hB0Y-7G4qP/view?usp=sharing

1. Dreams and visions

   1. Tawesek Last night, you had a dream that you are back on the top of the mountain above the cave where your parents and sister died.  You look off to the south west, and see a lake far off that you remember your parents’ speaking about the “Eye of Night” or “Vast Grohmlin”. Casually, you notice a woman standing next to you.  She’s  matronly, and covered in thick woolen clothing, made of burgundy, purple, and dark brown yarn, as well as a thick forest-green cape.  She looks at you with kindly eyes and says, “It’s been a long while since he’s met with a bear.  Perhaps you should visit…”  She touches your forehead, and you rise up into the sky.  As you fly toward the lake, you notice that it’s huge, and almost perfectly round.  On the southern shore, you see a homestead with smoke rising from the chimney, and feel drawn toward it.  You land near the pebble strewn shore a short distance from the cottage, and take a few hops like a crow…  When you wake up you feel comforted, and welcomed into the world.

   2. The Abbot’s Hut You wake in the Abbot’s hut, just as the sky begins to lighten the sky.  You hear a rustling outside, and see the Woman from before sitting on a log at a distance along the path toward the lake.  She turns to see you, and then turns back to look out across the water of the lake, and you understand that she has invited you to sit next to her.  When you reach her and sit down she says without looking at you, An animal should not be kept indoors, if he’s meant to sleep under the sky.  She turns to look into your eyes, and you see, again, a deep forest green in her irises.  You have much to learn, and to see Little Bear before you make your choice.*  Do you hear his whispers?  He crawled down into the ground long ago, and he sleeps on the edge of thought and dream.  We all thought that we understood him, but the Bear is clever, and deep, and it is hard to tell if his sleep is troubled.*  With that she stands, and pats your head.  She turns and fades quickly into the shadows of the woods around you, and you hear her voice echoing all around you*: They’ll wish to return to the Elder Lands even if they don’t know, and if you look, he’s there too.  And perhaps that’s where you are, as well.*  

   3. Ancient Tree Vision When you touch the tree, you feel an ancient power, and feel yourself spinning.  The power is a compliment - a different feeling than what you’ve felt before.  You find yourself remembering standing on a grassy mound staring up at the stars, which wheel about your head.  You stand on the mound alone within moonless night.  You feel the grass of the mound slowly rising and falling as though the ground itself is breathing.  Through your bare feet, you feel the deep sound that seems to you to be the breath of a giant animal sleeping fitfully…

• Silas’ reaction:* I’ll try to lay on the ground and speak to the animal and soothe it, and tell it to look at the stars and how beautiful they are.

• What happens next:* It rolls over in it’s slumber, but you get the sense that you changed what it was dreaming about to something beautiful that you don’t understand.

  1. Returning to the Stone Circle
  

Dreamed we went back through the well portal to the tree. The tree was towering over us. We look down into the pool, it looks like the sky and we would fall into the sky if we stepped into it. We sense various things. We’re watching the roots dig into the ground. We feel as though the tree has spread its tendrils and filaments out through the worlds surface, and its holding everything together. The roots are binding all of it. We see the roots wrapping and feeling their way down the well. The tre is drinking from the well. We can feel that there are living things down in the roots of the tree. Silas can sense that there is a giant, ancient, moss covered bear in the roots. We all feel that tree has bound itself with the spirit of a young woman, perhaps encased in the tree, someone associated with the tree. There’s a sort of dichotomy of this tree. It’s the oldest thing we’ve ever encountered, but also has this young spirit contained in it, almost sacrificial.

  1. Looking up into the stars one night

As you sleep under the stars, you see great movements and stories in the stars that you don’t fully understand.  You see a Great Bear, and a Bear Cub with a dragon curling between them.  You see a kingfisher with a red eye flying next to a phoenix - wings spread, and both flying through a great river of light.  You see two brothers very different, but walking hand in hand. You see an Old Man sitting and smoking a pipe, watching things from afar with a two-horned crown lying behind him..  You can see that all these things are of a piece.  That they are ancient, and alive, but you don’t know the whole story.  You see that they are living their own existences, and that they are not concerned with you, but that each is trying to complete a task of their own.  You sense that - perhaps - you are there among them, and part of their story, but you are not yet sure.  You wonder if perhaps time will lead you further into their tales.

  1. The vision at the [[Nyth]] island song circle when [[Balthazar]]'s song

You stand by the stone that Balthazar has asked you to “play” on his instructions, and you do so, feeling your hand move against the rough surface of the standing stone, feeling it vibrate below your palm, when suddenly you are alone on a hilltop lit only by the lit of a waning crescent moon, and the fickle stars. You smell the deep scent of the soil and duff of the forest, the decay and growth just as the cool of autumn begins to descend, and you feel sure that you are standing on a hillock overlooking the river that tomorrow you will begin journeying along, upstream to your people’s winter village. You’re filled with sadness at the end of your summer life, but are excited with anticipation at movement. You think suddenly of a game you’ve seen children play: three children holding hands in a circle, but with arms crossed, and each leaning outwards as they run in a circle. As you stand on top of this night-lit hill, feeling the thick grass beneath your feet, you feel that you keep seeing out of the corner of your eye three women playing the game, with you at the center. And you anticipate a voice speaking into your right ear, and take your hand from the stone to turn toward, but find yourself, instead, back on the island, looking at your companions.

  1. Dream at [[Twrseren]]

As you sleep at Twrseren, you have a dream.  You find yourself high amongst the branches of a copper beech, and sitting amongst the branches not far from you - though closer to the trunk - is your sister.  See looks at you, then back out across the landscape, and says: do you remember, Brother, how we used to do this?  Climb a tree just to sit amongst the branches?  We said that someday we’d make a nest of our own.  I want you to know that I was jealous.  I refused to help you, because you didn’t need my help to climb as well as I did.  My little bear, I called you.  And now we are here again, high amongst the branches in the nest of a giant she-bird.  I want you to know that I climbed to the highest branches, and I leapt up amongst the stars.  I’ve traveled far and wide, preparing a way for you.  But I’m content now, and the task falls to you.  She looks at you lovingly and smiles.  Almost no one hears him now. She turns away, and looks out across the landscape again.  He’ll not awaken, but you hear him, and perhaps that’s enough.  You start to speak, but she holds up her hand to gently stop you.  Silas, she says, I won’t answer your questions.  Much of this you simply have to see on your own.  You’ve always learned by making your own mistakes.  But perhaps I can point you in a direction, or two.  And with that, she begins to hum the song you heard Branwen hum, and you drowse off, and find yourself falling out of the tree, which now seems much taller - worlds taller.  And you’re falling through the sky , and you see branches whipping past you, and you fall down toward the earth, and see Twrseren growing larger below you, and just as you’re about to crash, you find yourself waking with a start on the soft cushions of one of the couches in front of the fire in the round room of the tower.

  1. Experience jumping over the falls

You leap out into the night sky, and fall for a long time.  A stillness takes you, and - despite the rush of air, and the spray escaping the main flow of the falls - you feel calm.  You fall while looking upward, and through the sky are veins of black, veins that slowly seem to you to take the form of the branches of a giant tree, reaching out into each corner of the night sky.  You hear the rustle of the leaves as you pass, and it’s as though the stars are glow worms slowly making their way along the branches.  Their light - though close - comes from impossibly far away.  You feel the branches as though they are embracing the sky, shielding everything below them from a harm you cannot see or imagine.  But you feel a kinship, and it’s as though the tree reminds you of a duty to protect, and to care for all the living, growing things of the world.  And you turn, and see the force of the living and life-giving water pouring through the sky, and feel the cool moisture on your skin, and suddenly plunge toward it, feeling one with its flow.  You feel the water twist, and slow, feel it pounding from above even as you suddenly find yourself motionless in the depths, and then, like an old friend, the Moon - whom the druids always said saw and cared for all, no matter how well hidden - looks down at you from above, and you swim back up to the surface.  You find yourself at the edge of a long lake, with a waterfall - much smaller than the one flowing over the edge of Nyth -  behind you, and through the curtain of water, you see the flickering light of a small fire.  With one last glance at the moon, you turn, and swim through the gentle fall to see who’s inside…

[The experiences at the end of the Twr-Seren dream and falling from the waterfall seem very similar: falling through branches and leaves, etc.]

  1. Hunting session with Arthen on the Centaur Island

As you and Arthen explore the shoreline you peer into the woods.  For  a moment, here or there, when you look into the trees, it’s as though they’ve re-aligned themselves into pillars in a corridor leading… elsewhere.  Arthen sits on his haunches, raising his nose in the air.  A new smell.  He nods toward the trees.  Some part of you remembers that you are not to go into the forest, and so you lead on along the cobbles of the beach, the smooth surfaces of the stones grinding against each other as you place your weight on them.  More pathways.  More smells.  But the darkness and un-seen ends to which they lead gives you pause.  Your bear-mind doesn’t think this odd, exactly.  A bear sees the world differently, after all.  But when you return to camp, you try to understand what you have seen, and articulate it for Silas’ mind.

1. The Bearskin cloak This is Silas’ magic item, given to him by his father in the cave in which the family was trapped before they disappeared. Seren was also given her mother’s white fox skin cloak.

Silas has kept this cloak with him throughout the years, and in order to transform, he need to be wearing it.  While he struggles to explain it, it’s as though he pulls it closer to himself - almost into himself - when he transform into a bear.  He is - in effect - “Putting on the bear’s skin”.

The cloak is not a one with which anyone else could wild shape. What makes it possible is something about the object and Silas as an individual together. Silas doesn’t know of anyone else that can do this.

When we met Seren at the farm, she would have been able to fill Silas in some gaps in his memory from the ill-fated seal hunt, and what happened to her following their separation, revealing that she can wild shape into a white fox in a similar fashion. She doesn’t know what their parents knew about the cloaks or how they got them. Seren would remember that their parents always had the cloaks and that they were special, but doesn’t remember their origin. Their parents never told them a story of how they got their cloaks. It wouldn’t have been remarkable that they had these cloaks, they always just wore them. If they were up to anything, we were unaware of it. If we ran into anyone else in a similar situation, they probably would have also had something similar.

How Silas came to know how to wild shape, he’s not totally sure how it happened. It was clear the druids realized he could. He’s unsure, when they found him if he was a human or bear. Things would be hazy given the process of being buried and traveling and injuries from the fall, but they understood something. No one there would have taught him how to do it. Some elders may have been able to guide him in terms of control, but there were no instructions.

1. Mechanics

   1. Wild Shape | Always keep in mind: | | - “Presence” | - Clumsy, prehensile hands | |---|---|---|---|

   2. “I told you to take the wizahd’s stahff.” (mechanics tied to retaining the staff in bear form)

• Make a DEX roll when wild shaping into Arthyden to see if Silas can maintain control of the staff
• These elements are at the DM’s discretion, while holding the staff as the bear:
  • Usage of class features
  • Whether to use the Arthyden’s CON or Silas’ CON for saving throws; will depend on the action being taken
  • Movement is halved
• If the staff is ever dropped, other characters can attempt to give the staff to the bear
• At 6th level, you retain WIS, CHA and INT scores but keep the bear’s STR, DEX and CON
• At 8th level, you can now easily wild shape into a bear and can use all class features while holding the staff
• Spells
  • OK to cast in bear form:
    • Absorb elements
    • Thorn whip
    • Magic stone
    • Find traps
    • Longstrider
  • Not ok:

    • Poison sling stone (hold person)

    1. Nature’s Champion As Nature’s Champion (the druid path chosen at level 4), the druid chooses to put the strength of their body into the form of their bear.  With each level of druid (including the fourth), they are able to transfer 1 point from a physical trait ability score (strength, dexterity, constitution) to their wild-shaped form or 1 point from a mental trait ability score to their human form.  (Or one in each direction.) A druid who follows this path isn’t able to share their mental traits with their bear form, though at 6th level, they do maintain the consciousness of their human form while wildshaped.

The bear form is a barbarian class character following the Path of the Berserker and has as many levels as there are druid levels in your non-bear form.

  1. # Acceptable feats to take at ASI levels

• Charger - TAKEN

• Savage attacker

• Durable

  1. # HP and Hit Die
  

• When rolling a hit die, you choose for which form the hit points will go

• As a champion, you have two separate HP pools

• You take the damage in whatever form you’re in when it’s dealt.  When that form falls to 0 hit points, that form is considered stable, you wild shape back to the other form and any overflow damage goes to that form.  Once you’re at 0 in both forms, you just make death saves as normal.  If one form is at 0 in hit points, and not in the other, the 0 hit point form is stable when you go back to it.

  1. # Exhaustion
  

• In general, levels of exhaustion are shared by both human and bear form. If a level is removed one form, the other form also removes a level.

  1. # Resting
  

• Long rests heal both forms

• Short rest / hit dice / spell healing require you to be in that form. E.g. a healing kit applied in bear form only applies healing to the bear form.

  1. [[Mannix]]'s Helm (outdated, as the helmet is beyond our reach now)
  

If the wearer can charge for 15 feet in a straight line at an enemy, the enemythey must succeed on a strength or dexterity saving throw with a DC of the wearer’s attack roll +5, or - for a medium or smaller sized creature be thrown 10ft in the direction of the charge, be knocked prone, and take 1d8 bludgeoning damage.  The +5 will increase for various reasons based on experience.  Large or larger creatures are simply knocked prone on a failed saving throw.

  1. # Charger feat

When you use the Dash action, you can use a bonus action to make a melee weapon attack or shove a creature.

If you move at least 10 ft. in a straight line before using this bonus action, you either gain a +5 bonus to the damage roll (if you chose to make a melee attack and you hit) or push the target up to 10 ft. away from you (if you chose to shove and you succeed).

  1. # Combined helmet + charger effect

You are proficient with the Helm of Mannix if you are attuned with it.  

You can make a melee attack with the Helm of Mannix as a bonus action if you move 15 feet in a straight line to the enemy.

The enemy must succeed a STR or DEX saving throw with a DC of 5+ the charger’s attack roll. On a failed save, a medium or smaller creature is thrown 10 feet away, knocked prone and takes 1d12+5 bludgeoning damage. Larger creatures take the same bludgeoning damage, and are knocked prone only if they fail the save by at least 5.