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- So, in addition to war machines, Hupperdook has manufactured some very specialized equipment for traveling across boundless ice fields and excavating ancient cities and so on.
- They are very sturdy, reasonably roomy for persons of a smaller persuasion, and have some of the best temperature-regulation enchantments known to humanoid-kind.
- Which is why it really isn’t Kiri’s fault that she fell asleep in the cozy warm place while hiding from the Crownsguard and ended up accidentally stowing away to Eiselcross.
- Luckily for her, the Tomb Takers find her before Vess DeRogna does.
- Kiri is pretty happy to see a familiar face, even if it’s the kind of standoffish one that kept warning the rest of the Nein not to get too attached.
- Obviously he doesn’t remember her, but it looks like he had some kind of falling-out and joined a different crew, and they obviously have a lot of adventures, so that’s kind of normal, maybe?
- Anyway, the Tomb Takers get her some warm gear and let her tag along, and Molly, who’s going by a different name now, is very patient and lets her tell him stories when it’s his turn to have her ride on his shoulders.
- Sometimes he talks to himself, too. And he went through a lot of trouble to steal a book and then wouldn’t let her read it. But he’s not a bad guy.
- He isn’t, right?
- Right?
- Acquiring an underage kenku is about the last thing Lucien needed right now, but it isn’t as though Balenpost is any place for lost kids, and besides, she’s obviously quick and sneaky, with some very useful information.
- Hey, “welome to the Mighty Nein?” Obviously she has some more information about those fuckers who wandered off with Lucien’s body for a while and now will not leave him alone. It’s useful, all right?
- Plus, you can’t tell me any of the Purple Bois don’t have a soft spot for kids. Especially the one who actually remembers what it was like being one.
- Kiri finds the next couple weeks very confusing and kind of scary, but also interesting, and then the rest of the Nein show up and there’s weird vibes going on between her old friends and her new friends, but that’s grownup stuff, and there’s a magic tower full of kitties and pancakes, so who cares?
- Only maybe she should have been paying attention because then maybe she wouldn’t have stumbled into the big-ass magical ritual at precisely the wrong time, and she wouldn’t have been hit by huge amounts of power that were supposed to involve plane shifts and the imbuing of power to rival the gods and so on and so forth.
- (There may, possibly, have been a really janky-looking crimson weasel involved.)
- So now the Nein, the Tomb Takers, Essek, and a bunch of less interesting NPCs are all stuck in the ruins of Aeor, blinking at each other and trying to decide what’s next
- Which problem Kiri is entirely happy to leave for them to figure out, because she just managed to ascend to godhood completely by accident.
- It’s a lot to process. And the locals mostly don’t look all that friendly.
- Accidental ascension goes against everything Ioun stands for. The only reason she doesn’t smite the newcomer to oblivion immediately is that she has to figure out how, exactly, this happened. She Has to Know, Okay?
- Kiri’s answer to her questions is “Go fuck yourself.” Ioun still doesn’t smite her, but it’s a near thing.
- Artangan may not stop laughing before the next apogee solstice. This is so much better than being a god himself, and he gets to watch.
- Lucien is much more conflicted. On one hand, no more extra eyes, no more crazy voices in his head. On the other hand, he’s just lost at least four levels in one swell foop, and these other assholes still won’t stop trying to make him remember being “Molly.”
- Oh, and his old boss’s corpse is in that bag of holding, and that’s going to be a headache to deal with.
- Plus, thinking back on it? Some of the stuff he’s done lately has been a little bit… not cool.
- (He isn’t going to think about that. He and Essek can hang in the background being purple and Not Thinking About the Past for a while. It’ll be fine.)
- Jester is really worried. Kiri’s all alone up there! Under her stern instructions and with the help of a really good charisma roll, the first joint project of the Tomb Takers and the Nein is to construct a
snow forttemple and ply the newly ascended Kiri with offerings of pastries and shiny things. - Caleb puts up a chapel room in the nein-sided tower, too.
- Nobody, (Kiri included) knows what, exactly, she’s supposed to be the god of, but this is sort of their fault and they’re not going to let her starve while she figures it out if they can help it.
- I’m sure the figuring-out process involves a lot of Shenanigans. If I come up with specific Shenanigans I’ll list them out.
- OK. Actually, here’s one: Kiri keeps showing up in other gods’ temples – just sort of looking around and poking into things. Sometime she’ll rearrange things a bit – a Temple head will find a blanket fort made out of altar cloths and stacks of hymnals in the middle of the nave, and if they poke their head inside they’ll hear a voice saying “I made something!”
- And she absolutely gets a chance to say “go fuck yourself” to Ikithon, I mean, really.
- She’s not all that helpful otherwise in the Ikithon fight, honestly. She’s really new to all this and she only has like a dozen followers, max, and she’s sharing her only clerics with an Archfey and the Wildmother.
- In point of fact, she never really gets all that many followers, and certainly never gets a temple organization.
- But blanket forts and secret hideouts are sacred to her. She takes a page out of the Traveler’s book and acts as The Best Imaginary Friend for a lot of lonely children. She accepts whatever the Exandrian equivalent of Barbie shoes and individual jigsaw puzzle pieces is, as offerings.
- Her limited powers mostly extend to enhancing the warm fuzzy feelings of people who care about the children she visits, or making them feel guilty otherwise.
- Outside of the people who were there when she ascended, the Goddess Kiri doesn’t make a huge impression on the Exandrian population – Although an airship captain out of Emon and a merchant out of Jurusar meet up in Kymal and discover their kids have identical imaginary friends, and that’s kinda creepy.
- And she’ll still show up in other gods’ temples now and then, when she feels like it, if the gods in question don’t intervene.
- That can be… a little erratic. If someone asks for her in a temple of the Wildmother or the Everlight, they’ll usually get at least a hint of someone saying “yes, I’m very sweet.” And sometimes, in Very Grownup and otherwise hostile temples, such as that of the Platinum Dragon, (or if you personally are too mean) you’ll hear “go fuck yourself.”
- But the thing is, she shows up in Shrine of the Platinum Dragon in Nicodranas a lot more often than the Best Blanket Fort Ever in Rexentruum or Zadash.
- It takes a while to figure the pattern out, especially since the God in question is bright, but not of an… analytical frame of mind.
- In the buildup to the Apogee Solstice, one of the many, many things Jester has to worry about is that, when she tries to Commune with Kiri, she gets an impression of dull, ragged feathers, and a voice that says “I’m scared,” and nothing else.
- The number of temples she shows up at, even among her ‘favorites’ among the Prime Deities, keeps diminishing.
- And Jester is worried, but also, there’s the ship to run, and Caleb and Beau are working on taking down Ludinus, who is still an enormous dick, and it’s not that she doesn’t care, but she doesn’t have as much time as she used to, to play with Kiri, and she doesn’t know how else to help.
- Clarabelle Clay does not have that problem.
- If Clarabelle doesn’t know what’s going on, she’s happy to keep poking into weird-smelling corners and figure it out.
- Plus, this celestial bull just showed up at the Grove, so, like, they can spare one person to look into this without being short of power for the major stuff.
- Clarabelle is used to watching bugs and plants and things for hours and days at a time, and picking patterns out of chaos. She can absolutely help a new Goddess figure out her sense of purpose for a hundred years or so. She is going to science the shit out of this.
- In fact, seeing how the aftermath of the Solstice and the threat of Predathos affect Kiri give them some valuable clues.
- (I’m going to be deliberately vague about that bit, because I’m nowhere near caught up with Campaign Three and there are clearly going to be Consequences.)
- (Also, I am fully aware that I’m being unreasonably salty about my “the Savelierwood Blight is Nanobots” theory getting jossed, but I am still salty and need to sulk for a bit before I invent any more theories.)
- It takes a couple centuries and maybe another near-apocalypse or two, but the new Goddess and her
favorite babysitterChampion eventually figure it out: - Kiri’s divine title is Harbinger.
- Her people are the innocents, the holy fools, the ones whose curiosity and optimism are grounded in an ignorance of danger.
- She doesn’t have a lot of power. Not having power is part of the point. She’s vulnerable. Her people are vulnerable.
- If she shows up in another god’s temple, it means that temple is a safe place for people who have nothing to give back but their own gratitude. It’s safe for the ones who aren’t clever, or brave, or strong, and they’ll be able to grow into themselves without being used or corrupted.
- In places where the kids have to grow up too fast, where the best the lowly can hope for is having only one boss to abuse them instead of everyone? No Kiri there.
- Except maybe in a blanket fort now and then.
- Which is why the clerics of Vasselheim really should have been more concerned that she never showed up there, but if any of them were the type to be concerned about that, she would have been able to show up.
- She doesn’t have much power of her own, but she’s a measure of the other gods’ powers and the uses they’re put to.
- If your missionaries are being told to fuck themselves, they might want to have a good hard look at that mission.
- If your missionaries hear nothing but their congregants hear “I’m scared,” you might be slipping in the direction of becoming another Betrayer.
- If a young upstart of a crossroads demon, or a cranky old Elemental, gets told “welcome to the Mighty Nein?” They’re doing something right.
- (Some of the scholars of the Cobalt Soul argue endlessly amongst themselves - the Nine what? What is Kiri welcoming people to? Because just because the answer to the question exists in the archives doesn’t mean anyone’s read it. Or believed it.)
- Kiri’s judgment of her fellow spirits isn’t universally accepted, of course; that would be too much power for what she is.
- In fact, like all gods, she can be really scary sometimes.
- The fat merchants who talk about the “glories of war?” The “let them eat cake” aristocrats? The dudes who plot revenge against the girl who rejected them? Those are people who stayed in Kiri’s realm too long, and now live in the expectation that their feelings matter more than anything else and the grownups will sort it out.
- (Yes, this means that some of Kiri’s people can make things very, very bad, for others of Kiri’s people; what else is new?)
- The other gods (And Clarabelle) occasionally have to make her clean her room.
- But a few people, both Above and Below, pay close attention. The presence of the Harbinger is a good sign. It’s worthwhile to invite her in, on certain holy days.
- And even if your order is not a good place for innocents, it doesn’t actually hurt anything to build a blanket fort in the temple nave now and again.
- (Artagan is still laughing.)