Thursday 15 June 2017

The Nightly Travellers

"We had followed them into the valley, and found there an obstacle course of sorts, made of Areal thresholds. Apparently they train to leave, make, and enter them as a sport - it's no wonder we were never able to catch them."
— Rastann, guard
There are orders aside the speakers that look for wisdom and truth. The Nightly Travellers believe it can be found in the Area, and live almost exclusively there. As the nature of the Area makes reconnaissance nearly impossible, nobody knows what they are doing there, where they camp or live, and where they will come out. Also, since paths are shorter in the Area, they can travel vast distances very quickly, and have thus always eluded capture.
"I will take your daughter with me. She shall learn to weave, spin, and dye the mountainsides and shallow seas."
— Night Traveller Hmakinga
The Nightly Travellers are not the friendly helpers they claim they are. They steal children, to raise them in the Area. People staying within the Area for long often become strange and incomprehensible, and nobody knows what this upbringing does to the children.
When Nightly Travellers leave the Area, they create astonishing, intricate Areal relics of strange effects, and rulers become worried when they are sighted.


Artists' notes
There are a whole lot of other, friendlier orders with altruistic goals, but describing the freakish, strange orders with intransparent agendas is fun. The others will get their time as well, of course. Meeting a Nightly Traveller is like the opening scene of an urban fantasy novel, when you see a modern mage do something incredible with casual ease.

2 comments:

  1. This is one of my favorite posts you've written in a while. It's such a cool idea, and it's rife with bizarre events, enigmatic characters, and fantastic story opportunities. I like how vague the second comment is by Hmakinga, the sort of soft magic that adds an air of mystery to a setting. "Dye the mountainsides? What? How does one do that, and why?"

    Very inspiring, thank you for sharing!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! The Nightly Travellers are so attuned to the Area they were bound to be pretty surreal, and talking about dying mountainsides is a relatively rational thing to say by their standards - you may imagine how hard it is to interrogate them, in the rare case one can be caught.

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