It all started when my life was saved by Aunty Abby. She’s not really my aunt, but she is the queen’s daughter and bed-friend to Sabina, the queen’s ex-bodyguard and ex-bed-friend, who is now leader of the guard because the ex-leader of the guard is now the queen because she killed the queen. Aunty Abby killed the queen, not Sabina. Or the queen. I mean, the queen didn’t kill the queen. Uh… I mentioned there are three different queens in this story, right?
I can explain.
First, do you know where we are? Magnimar. Geography lesson! Magnimar is the biggest city on the Lost Coast, right here. It’s famous for the incredibly huge Bridge to Nowhere, built by the ancient Thassilonian Empire.
Right, Thassilon. History lesson! See, about 10,000 years ago, this whole area was a continent, and the main people were Thassilonians. Then the aboleths ruined it all…
Okay. Aboleths. Dungeoneering lesson! Aboleths are kind of fish monster gods. Really powerful, really unnatural. Anyway, they were kind of jealous of the Thassilonians, so they used magic to pull a giant rock out of the sky and smack it into the middle of the continent. Poof. Bye-bye Thassilon. Hello ocean.
So anyway, back to history, it’s interesting because the Thassilonians had some really powerful mages too. They called themselves Runelords. And coincidentally, one of them didn’t die when the big rock fell out of the sky, and just a few years ago he tried to get out of his magic panic-room and re-dominate the world, but some heroes from a town called Sandpoint, right… here… rose up and stopped him. Small world.
By the way, also recently, some drow elves tried to repeat the aboleths’ trick and pull down another sky rock, but they got stopped too. Dick move, drow elves, dick move.
Back to Aunty Abby who isn’t from Magnimar… time for geography, religion, history, and nobility all at once! See, this country, Chelliax had some rough times after Aroden died (he’s the god who died a while back), so they made a deal with Asmodeus, the evil god who rules Hell, and times got better, at least for the royal family. The queen of Chelliax… that’s Aunty Abby’s mom. Kind of an open secret. But see, last year some of Chelliax decided they didn’t want to be part of the whole devil-worship thing, so they told the queen to go stuff her head up her… um… hat.
Well, one of the leaders of that rebellion was a mighty warrior lady. But because it’s a small world, she has a mighty wizard brother who was part of the group that closed this Worldwound thing right… here.
Planes lesson! The Worldwound was a massive country-sized portal that opened up right into the Abyss, where the demons live. Totally crap neighbors for everyone around. So, these guys closed it down because the demon parties were too loud. One of the folks who did that was a really powerful priest of Abadar, and he became bed-friends with Nocticula, demon goddess of lust and darkness. Get this… the guy turned evil. Nobody’s surprised. But funny thing… Nocticula stopped being evil. Weird, huh?
So, Aunty Abby left Chelliax because her mom was being mean because of all the rebellions and stuff, and came to the city where I was born, Korvosa. We also have a giant Thassilonian relic like the bridge here in Magnimar, but ours is a huge pyramid thing that our castle is built on. And in the castle, we had our own queen, who was also kind of a bad lady. She went nuts and started a plague, which killed an awful lot of people. Don’t worry… Abby and her friends killed the queen by exploding their witch-doctor at her. And now someone else is queen because we didn’t want an evil, dead, exploded queen. But anyway, the first person to get sick from the queen’s plague… well, yeah, that was me. I would’ve died too because my mom couldn’t afford healing from the church of Abadar (whose basic tenets of faith are “wear uncomfortable clothes and never be generous”), but then Abby paid for it.
And that’s how Aunty Abby saved my life.
Oh, and when I got better from the sick, I started seeing things that aren’t there, until I want them to be there, and then they are there and then they’re awesome.