#incredible stuff. love that for the empress. a wild 5 minute span she just had

[isaacathom]

because a pc died in a recent ttrpg session my brain has gone absolutely Ballistic and i have fun thoughts about my character in ways that both do and dont relate to that, which i should stop flooding my twitter timeline with, and thus,

so first of all! the character who died, Commodore Morgaan Vandervest, was the party leader. He was the head of the fleet, the leader of our little strike force forward troop, captain of the Pendagast. A man with a military background, he'd signed onto this whole trip largely to get away from his family.

my character, Naielle Odelia, was the Pendagast's navigator. In a confrontation with pirates, Naielle was required to navigate the sheep through a shallow reef, and nearly got the boat grounded. When the pirate ship was captured, Naielle was, for reasons still unclear to her, appointed to serve as its captain.

Vandervest was a complicated leader for the crew. He was illsuited to the complicated political and diplomatic incidents he had to engage in, in ways which often wrankled against the more diplomatically minded crew. He also gave orders that were... harsh is the wrong word, but were coming from a more ruthless perspective, which particularly wrankle the generally polite and conflict avoidant Naielle. She wasn't alone in her dislike for the commodore's actions, but she only acted against his orders twice. "only", huh! other people were planning mutiny, on a variety of grounds.

BUT. Naielle would consider him a good leader. Not suited to his task, necessarily. She had many disagreements. But she trusted him to make those decisions honestly. And she took her appointment by him extremely seriously, despite her misgivings that she herself wasnt suited to the post.

Vandervest's background, being from a tiefling bloodline cursed centuries ago, meant that the majority of individuals in a given generation do not live past 80 or so. The Blight, as it's so called, will claim them before that point.

He was 63.

He hid the effects from everyone as best he could once they manifested, some month or two ago in-game. He slipped only rarely, and refused to be babied by the understandably-concerned crew. He didn't tell them. He told only his personal spy, who helped him arrange his affairs. Despite his condition, he didn't stop going into the field with the party when the situation demanded it. When he was knocked unconscious in battle against a corrupted dragon, multiple members of the party pulled out the stops to rescue him, even against things he wanted to happen - a chain devil had arrived to ferry his body away, and was prevented from doing so by three separate interventions. He was given the chance to explain himself, in brief, with what power he had left. And then he was gone.

He was 63.

Naielle has. a great deal to unpack in the Commodore's death. There's the issues in the immediate, the sudden gulf of leaderlessness that is being filled reluctantly by another party member, appointed by the dying Commodore with no fore-knowledge of his eligibility. Led or not, the dynamic has changed. There's the loss of his presence on the battlefield, the space in which he is most present, most skilled, most suited.

And there's other things. Naielle sees in the death of the Commodore the death of a cousin of her, Vincent Gerner, who died 7 or so years ago of a recurrent illness. Vincent was similarly stubborn and refused help as far as he could. Perhaps unluckier than the Commodore in a sense, that he lacked the nigh-supernatural strength to keep fighting until 11:59.

Vincent is the one who got Naielle her job as a navigator.

Vincent looked at Naielle, exiled from her home and wallowing in despair in his mother's spare room, and he told her that was not living. That she couldn't just let life come to her, couldn't just wait out the result she wanted, but had to grab it. And if she couldn't? If what she wanted wasn't available? Seek something else. Live, for fucks sake. He gave her that job, through his guild connections, and he got her on her feet.

It wasn't love. It's not love. It's bitter pragmatism. It's the knowledge of a dying man that he is doing his best to Live, and that everyone should, however they define that. And that what she's doing couldn't possibly be it, even by her own standards. If she'd refused, he would have let her. But he gave her that glimmer of hope, without love, and she seized it.

Vandervest is the one who gave Naielle her position as captain.

She doesn't know what motivated him to do it. She had just floundered in her role as navigator. She had failed the Pendagast. And, she supposes, and she can only suppose, he saw her skills lying elsewhere. Thought she might better suit command, a higher level perspective. Thought it was an opportunity for her to redeem herself and not wallow in her failures. Had faith, and she hopes it was faith, that she would succeed.

She doesn't know if she has. She hopes she has.

Like her job or not, she has considered it worthwhile. Command has forced responsibility on Naielle that she has avoided much of her life, and while she has not grasped it eagerly, she has sought to pay off his faith. She has gained confidence from his action.

In a letter she wrote to him, intended to be read after her own death and instead delivered after his, she told him:

For what I can only assume was faith that I could rise to the challenge, I have to thank you. Given the circumstances, I think anyone else would have thought that a foolish notion - had I half the confidence then as I do now, I would have said so myself.

And she was sincere. She meant it. She did not want the job, but she didn't want to let him down, and it's only now, months into her station, that she has the confidence she would have needed to tell him as much.

She owes both men a great deal. Neither man will ever really, truly know the depth of Naielle's gratitude to them.

She will repay them for what they did for her, whether they understand it or not.

All her unspent wages will go to Vincent's mother, who so graciously housed her in her exile, and to Vincent's daughter Josefien, a woman close in age to her who she might, sometimes, consider like a sister.

She can't pay Vandervest. She certainly wouldn't pay his family - all evidence suggests he wouldn't want that. But she can keep going. She can continue in her role, unwanted or not, and rise to the challenge he gave her all those months ago. She can hold true to who she is, and she can maybe, maybe, make his trust worth it. She can not disappoint a ghost.

-----

There are things she wanted to talk to Vandervest about, but was never going to.

Naielle is a warlock to the star Alcor, a forgotten glimmer in an elven sky. He is the reason for her exile, 20 years before the campaign began. Naielle's sister Mariela is a warlock to him too, unwillingly, brought into the fold by accident on Naielle's part. Long story, that.

Recently, Naielle learnt the reason she was made a warlock.

From her perspective, she had entreated the stars for help on her research project - knowledge, that old card. And the stars responded, and said she would have that and more.

That more was that she would serve in distant battlefields against Aboleth, and that she would reach apotheosis and join the star in the sky.

The former she had done with some acceptance, unaware at the time that this was all by design. She felt it her moral duty to intervene, to aid, to repell.

To give over herself to the divine is a concept she fears.

A fragment of her patron gave her options for how she might move forward:

Forsake her pact entirely, losing all knowledge and power gained therein. This would, not in totality but in effect, wipe 20yrs of memory from her. She would remember why she was here, and some details, but large sections would be utterly erased.

Declare her pact complete at a moment of triumph - no minor triumph, but grand. The death of an aboleth. To rid her sister of the pact, she must also be present.

Declare herself unfit to discharge her duties as high priest of Alcor, and nominate another as successor - her only option is Mariela, the sole other adherent.

Commit wholly, in the knowledge that manifesting the power of a great celestial may be what separates victory from defeat, the beating back of the aboleth threat from the complete destruction of the plane they invade. To reach for the stars.

Naielle fears her options. She considers the first utterly untenable, even in the face of her sister's suggestion that such a revocation would remove that which caused her exile, and would potentially permit her return home. As much as she wants it, she could not tolerate betraying the party in such a way. To be so selfish, without qualification, so as to remove herself entirely from the field of play.

But the remaining options, she struggles to pick between. She fears each in their own way, for the consequences for herself, and for her sister.

She would have liked to talk to Vandervest about them. She was never going to.

Regardless of the Commodore's weaknesses, Naielle trusted him. Naielle wanted his faith in her, as she saw it, to not be misplaced. She never went against an explicit order made of her - a measely distinction, but one she would make. She may have undermined orders of his made to others, but she followed her own.

She could not have spoken to Vandervest, Captain to Commodore. Any input he made would be an order.

She could not have spoken to him, peer to peer, one warrior against the aboleth to another. Any input he made would be a strong suggestion, something she might treat as though it were an order, no matter how he qualified it.

She would have liked his insight, even if she likely would have disliked the results. Frankly, she feared the idea of telling him she'd made a certain decision, and what reaction he might have.

Maybe it's for the best that he died before she made a choice.

-----

There are, arguably, two Naielles.

There's the Naielle that is Captain of the Xistina, Navigator of the Pendagast, a level-headed if anxious soul with a good heart and a desire for peace. A person reluctant to volunteer for a difficult task, but will commit with gusto should the duty fall to her, because others rely on her. A person who thinks and overthinks and triplethinks over anything she can see coming, who only acts when the situation demands immediacy, who might otherwise think herself into a hole. A self-described coward.

And there's the Naielle who steps onto the battlefield, Warlock and Reluctant High Priestess of Alcor, avatar of his power on the material plane. A healer and ranger spellcaster, who, in an instant, will ignore her backrow position to sprint forward to support her melee crew. A woman who hates to fly who considered leaping from a building to rescue someone. Someone who would take any action, make any decision, if it would save another. Someone who has to be reminded her own life is at risk in order for her to take it into account.

These are the same person. It's the same person forced to act.

If left to her own devices, Naielle will think and think and fret, and she will not act. Vincent and Vandervest, in their own ways, forced her to act on a particular scale, but in the micro she is often still there, worrying.

She can't afford to on the battlefield. So the first thing she drops, the first thing she leaves behind when the chips are down, is herself.

She often regrets it. Her breath will slow and the adrenaline ebb, and she'll realise she crossed a mortal boundary. Her head will return to earth and find it riddled with blood.

It's not that she doesn't know what's she's doing. It's not a barbarian rage, insensible and disconnected from the self. It's just that, in the moment, what she wants is the first thing to go, and the first thing to come back.

She acquired a mindflayer sword, a grotesque weapon intended to subjugate and control. She took it reluctantly, and said that she would make use of only specific abilities - the ability to cast forbiddance, the ability to cast gate, the ability to cast planeshift. Traits for which her party could find unambiguously positive use. A spellcasting implement.

And then, in a fight against a paladin of Asmodeus, who had blackmailed the fleet's Admiral with a contract over him and his son, Naielle used the sword to enthrall him.

She robbed him of his free will, even if only for a time. Demanded he rescind the contracts. And when clarity returned to his clouded eyes, she killed him. A man disarmed and restrained.

She knew what she was doing. It wasn't an order, either. She volunteered it, reluctantly even in the moment, as a solution to the problem. It was a tool at her disposal, and in a crisis, she will use any tool.

And after the crisis, she will weep.

Apotheosis is a tool. The fragment of Alcor did not refer to it in those terms, but it is the manner in which she understood it. An act ultimately to benefit the celestial, by allowing it a brief material manifestation, a means through which to empower itself and spread its will. And, in so doing, potentially fell Aboleth, first and father of all.

It's a tool. An option the Naielle of the battlefield would seize.

And Naielle of the ship fears it.

She doesn't think she'd regret it in the moment. That she'd acknowledge, even afterwards, that to make that commitment, to declare herself Alcor incarnate, would be the correct decision. But it means the loss of her individual personhood, her chance to live a life she has long craved with her wife, with her family. Isolated from all of them. Even if her decision was the deciding factor in their success, she thinks she might regret that.

So she wants to remove it. Naielle of the ship sees a tool that will kill her, no ifs ands or buts, that will take from the people she holds dear and deny her the satisfaction of victory.

And Naielle of the battlefield would see it as a decisive tool against evil. As a way to protect what she holds dear, to ensure that they all get to live their lives full and without fear. A way to allow others like Naielle their happy ending, at the cost of her own. A small price.

And the two are not reconciled. Maybe they never will be. Maybe Naielle of the ship will dither and delay, and deny herself any out, and Naielle of the battlefield will win. Or Naielle of the ship will be decisive, and she'll remove it from the board, and Naielle of the battlefield will regret its absence.

And both Naielle's, I think, wrestle over the idea of whether the self matters more than the group. And they'll keep wrestling until the storm envelops of them all.