|A| Charlemagne: The Lady of Flame

Charlamagne has no love for the Raven Queen, however, believing in life's higher purpose and the connectedness of all things, she accepts her fate as a Shadar Kai and remains a servant, refusing to forsake ker own kin amidst the tragedy that befell them all. She owes her inner allegiance to their survival and to the forces of life and nature. She dedicates her existence to preserving and restoring life throughout her journey. Having an uncommon path, it tends to be a solitary one, and leads to unexpected places and company. She is not especially close to anyone, with the exception of Ocarin Stonehollow.

Secrets: Charlemagne

Charlamagne has not shared with Ocarin the full truth of what happened before his death or what she had been to him. Her intentions were to spare him the pain of what she sees as their inevitable separation because of her path as a Shadar Kai. Her character flaw/denial is definitely that she gets too wrapped up in fate, trying to secure her future in understanding her place and the way things must be. Perhaps in trying to validate the tragedy of her past. It gives her resolve but also a vague constant uneasiness, and could lead to self-fulfilling prophecies...

A Brush with Death

While unconscious, Charlamagne had a vision:

In your unconscious state, memories of the distant past flood your mind's eye: your time in the ancient Feywilds, long before the first Elf ever walked the Material Plane; Lolth's betrayal of Corellon and your Queen's ambition to save Elven kind; the ritual wherein you granted her your soul and magics so that she might become Divine herself and bring a just end to the war; the duplicitous mages that betrayed your Queen, siphoning power away from her for themselves; her wrath as she turn her new divine powers against them, just shy of the gates of Arvandor itself; and the curse she unwittingly placed on herself and her subjects, destroying her corporeal form and banishing you all to the Shadowfell forever. A tragedy that feel all to recent, despite the millennia that have since past.

Before you now sits a towering spire in a realm of total darkness -- your home, the Fortress of Memories itself. Around you flicker the lights and shadows of the Shadar-Kai communities that flourish around the structure and the wisps of dark clouds ebb and flow over the distant black sun that sits at the broken horizon. The permanent dusk strikes nostalgia as you once again bask in the Divine Domain of your beloved Raven Queen.

The Fortress looms over the scene in a silent vigil, both inviting a cautious curiosity and a hosting a haunting reverence. You have never been inside the Fortress -- the Shadar-Kai keep to their exterior homes -- only engaging with the Raven Queen through her raven emissaries, but you suddenly find yourself being drawn to the spire.

In a flurry of shadows you suddenly find yourself in the center of a circular council chamber, ornamented with motifs of elvish runes and arcane tomes. The back sun from outside is framed behind a large stained glass window with a raven's head in profile centered in the structure.

Suddenly a cacophony of wingbeats and caws fill the room and lone chest appears on the floor before you; a single raven lands behind it and looks to you, expectantly.

Inside the chest are four objects, a Tear of Selûne, corporeal mist, a pendant, and a raven's feather. The pendant can be identified as a Barovian pendant with a DC 15 Investigation check.

Touching the Tear, a stone of the moon Selûne, shares a memory:

You are Selûne, Our Lady Silver, the Moonmaiden, the Night White Lady. Tears are streaming down your face as your sister, Shar, the Mistress of Night, leaves you for the first time since creation. The light and stars and the sun you pulled from the plane of fire have driven her away, and you two are no longer the Two-Faced-Goddess. As the ages pass, you war against your sister, and one day see her create a plane twined of the Material Plane, a dark, twisted form, a perversion she calls the Shadowfell.

The mists reveal a different memory:

You are Shar, dark and powerful, creating your own domain, the Shadowfell. It is a beautiful place of lightlessness. Though within your realm you feel a Dark Power, older gods, long-dead, the vestiges of terrible eldritch horrors. Their wills coalesce into a mist and annex a corner of your new home though you dare not combat them. Perhaps in time, with power, after you have destroyed the light.

The Barovian pendant shows a memory:

You are a farmer, just as your father was before you, and his father before him. In recent years a powerful warlord has come and conquered. The land now belongs to him, though you do not tarry in the politics of Lords and Ladies, who owns the land matter not so long as you are the one to till it. The conqueror has since completed construction of an incredible castle, one he named for his mother, though she did not live to see it. As you pass through the town on your cart full of milks, produce, and grain, you catch the end of the town crier announcing something, "-will be wed my the morrow. May the Morninglord bless their union. Feast and be marry for our land is truly a favored land!"

The raven feather shares another memory:

You are a Shadar-Kai, a devoted servant of the Raven Queen. You have grave news and you enter the home of another Shadar-Kai with the resolve to share it. It has been 238 years since her husband has been home. Seeking memories for the Raven Queen he had ventured away from the Fortress to a far and distant land, Barovia.

"The land has been captured in mists. It not longer exists on the Material Plane, and by whatever terrible magic, he has been trapped there."

"I don't understand, if he even lives the rest of his life there and dies he would still return to us here, the Raven Queen would retain his soul - he would be resurrected here. Death is only a temporary condition for our people."

"I'm sorry, Child of the Dusk, but souls do not leave the Domain of Dread, if he dies there, his soul will remain there forever. There is no way for us to reach him."

The widow cries and you comfort her, invoking a old prayer from the ancient times. And you think to yourself, *only 17 more families to go*.

GM Link(s)
Charlemagne: The Lady of Flame Queststages