Session 0: TWIB Part 2: REVOLUTION Report

General Summary

In canon, it’s been 6 months since the ending of our last sessions.  

EMPIRE GROUP:

Doc has been training Lexus and Cassia with the help of Lucius and the others, so now they have more experience in combat. Cassia has also been learning more about the world outside of the Empire and what it’s done while living with the others in the Fae-descendant country of Sylvia. Lucius has also gained more experience while training and going on missions by himself to exchange messages/plans with his allies across the Empire and Nyxvanus. He can now use Ghost Walk as a Phantom Rogue, which allows him to become temporarily incorporeal and step in and out of the realm of the dead. With this ability, he’s been able to communicate with Leo’s spirit and can now basically “summon” his spirit to the Material Plane for about 8 hours a day. During that time, Leo can speak and interact with other members of the party, as well as fight, but he loses his ghost-like form. Once 8 hours are up, Lucius has to rest for the rest of the day before he can summon Leo again. Leo has also been talking to Grimshaw, the God of Death, while in the afterlife. Grimshaw begrudgingly enjoys the company, although he acts like he doesn’t.   The King of Sylvia decided to send his aid, JFK, with Doc and the others as his ambassador to the Winter Fae Court AND to keep an eye on the party and make sure they don’t double cross him (he doesn’t tell them that, of course). He wants JFK to make sure the Fae Courts become their allies. At the end of the 6 months, Lucius helped Doc and the others sneak through Nyxvanus and into the Winter Fae Court with the help of his secret contact there–AKA a courtier/politician named Florian.   Once they entered a weak/glitching portal to the Winter Court, it caused the same time warp situation as the Fae Group had when traveling there (which was the passage of time being different before & after they went through it), so they’re now on the same day & timespan as the Fae Group. Doc and the others are coming to talk to the new Queen of Winter so they can ask her to ally with them against the Emperor of the Elysian Empire. The Emperor has been attacking the other Fae Courts and has begun to try and invade the Winter Fae Court. The only thing slowing him down is it’s hard to find a portal there unless you have a connection who can show you, but, of course, he’s made enemies of all Fae, so none of them are going to help. The other issue is crossing through the treacherous Winter Court mountains full of monsters and random, freezing snowstorms. These are the only 2 things buying the Winter Court time.  

FAE GROUP:

Charlotte has been the new Queen of Winter for roughly 6 months–ever since she and the rest of the Fae Group defeated her grandmother, the previous queen. After her grandmother’s death, Charlotte inherited all of her power due to being the last blood heir of the Winter Court throne. Due to the royal family’s distant ancestor being given half of the power of the God of Storms and Winter, Olir, they are usually trained from birth to control their magic. Normally, the heir would learn from the previous Queen and slowly ascend to the throne after fully learning how to use her powers without them going haywire from her emotions. However, Charlotte was originally an orphan raised by a human priest in Nyxvanus, with very little contact with other Fae until recently. She didn’t discover she was related to the Queen of Winter until right before she had to help kill her, due to her grandmother having gone basically insane over her 1000 years of life.   Charlotte’s aunt, Finador, was also frozen solid right after Charlotte gained all of her grandmother’s powers in seconds. If Finador had not sacrificed herself, the rest of the party would have been frozen instead, and Charlotte’s magic could have destroyed part of the Winter Court from going haywire. Finador remains frozen within the walls of Eirwen’s mansion, a Winter Fae-turned-Vampire who’s trying to find a way to reverse the damage done.   After the battle with the Queen, Siofra, Flower, John, and other members of the party eventually left the Fae Court in order to help their families/own Courts as the Empire were invading them.   Charlotte has been dealing with a lot emotionally, but Robin and Storm have been doing their best to train her in how to best control her powers. She’s still unable to do the first task every Queen learns how to do: which is to hold up the entire form of the massive Winter Court palace made of ice and the capital city’s outer defensive walls. Since Charlotte cannot handle the burden yet, many strong spellcasters have been called to the capital in order to keep these walls and the palace from collapsing. A protective barrier of magic has also been placed over the capital ever since Charlotte was publicly announced to the people of the Winter Court as their new Queen. Although it had only been a week since her grandmother’s death, and it was known she was one of the hands in killing her, half of the court was ready to accept a new ruler after the last nearly 30 years of suffering under the previous Queen. The other half who were still loyal to the Queen–most of them upper nobility or the wealthy who benefitted from manipulating her emotional fragility and temper–have yet to accept Charlotte. Some are actively working against her behind the scenes, but Olir (in disguise as the court jester) has been doing what he can to stall their plans.   The family who traditionally produces the “strongest” mage in the court (at least, that's what they claim every generation, though they secretly snuff out their competition) WAS run by the Head Mage of the Winter Court–the same one who was the direct superior of all spellcasters in the capital. Since Charlotte and the others killed her, the family has been bitter ever since. The position of Head Mage has also been left open, as it’s customary for the Queen to appoint them (however, the previous Queen usually just appointed the next head of the same family every time).   With Charlotte unable to fully control her powers, the Head Mage is who all spellcasters in the capital should defer to, but with the position empty, there’s been some trouble organizing and giving them efficient orders. Storm and Wren are doing their best to assist Charlotte with some of these issues, but since the two are of low birth and not super high ranking soldiers, many begrudge them for this. However, other than Robin, they’re one of the only 2 people Charlotte knows she can trust right now.