by Alex "Elouan" Groom
Ah, Ashenbounty. Personally speaking, this is one of my favorite feasts of the year, and something I look forward to every fall. This year, Ashenbounty was held in Pacifica, one of the lands of the Imperium. Well, formerly of the Imperium, but I’ll get to that later.
For those who are unaware, the Imperium is an empire that (and, if I get any of this wrong, someone please correct me) were frozen in time for some number of centuries, only to wake up very confused at the current geopolitical landscape. Their response was to attack what they perceived as invaders; unfortunately, these “invaders” were the various adventurers and nations of the Realms. Needless to say, they hurt themselves in their confusion. The Imperium is made up of four nations; the two that are important right now are Pacifica (a kingdom of traders and merchants, and a people known for their strong wills) and the Noxari (a kingdom consisting entirely of elitist mages, where having some degree of magical talent is required for citizenship; they are exactly as pleasant as they sound).
For some time, there has been a power struggle going on within Pacifica. Prince Skyros had been trying to steer the nation into a more peaceful and prosperous state, free of the wars of the Imperium. This has gone against the will of the Queen, his mother, who (from what I could gather) was efficient yet cruel in her rule.
This weekend, that struggle came to a head. Prince Skyros openly announced his intentions to seize control of the throne from his mother. The fate of Pacifica was to be decided by a series of traditional Pacifican challenges known as Ascension, with the Imperium backing the Queen and the Realms backing Prince Skyros. So split were the Pacificans in this matter that they decided to remain neutral, and not participate in these tournaments.
The challenges consisted of some sort of monster fighting pit, war tournaments, and treasure hunting. I spent the majority of the time at the event treasure hunting; I was in the process of learning new magics, and for most of the day did not have the powers I would need to fight in a war tournament to my satisfaction. The treasure hunting was quite fun, presenting a number of challenges including map reading, albino tuber decoys (image my reaction when we found the X that we believed marked the spot, only to find a white potato underneath, and to notice several more X’s), riddles, and classic “walk X paces north” style navigation.
I did fight in a few war tournaments, and found them quite fun as well. Throughout these war tournaments, the Noxari did what they do best: technically not cheat. One particular incident that comes to mind was a competition where individuals had to wear either a blue or red piece of cloth, but could only affect those who were wearing opposite colored cloth. The Noxari wear purple as a nation, and claimed that as a mixing of red and blue, they could affect anyone. This was declared to be within the letter of the rules, if not the spirit.
The Realms ended up quite handily winning the Ascension for Prince Skyros. However, when the time came for the conclusion of the ceremony and the crowning of King Skyros, he was nowhere to be found. This was further complicated by the fact that if Skyros did not show up by sundown, the Ascension would be forfeit. After some quick searching, we found his close advisor Alec dead nearby. Alec revealed that they had been ambushed, and Skyros had been taken by the Noxari. We confronted the Queen about this, who divulged that she had spoken with Candar, one of the leaders of the Noxari, saying she was willing to do anything to win, but did not expect Candar to go to these lengths.
Thanks to Alec, we were able to track down where the Noxari had brought Prince Skyros to. We fought through numerous waves of fire and lava elementals, finally to reach the Prince. He was being kept captive by one of the Noxari and a number of lava elementals. After breaking the ward the Noxari had set up, we were able to rescue Prince Skyros. Myself and a small contingency of others escorted him back to the field, while everyone else dealt with a quite nasty fire beast that had appeared when the ward was broken.
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| Photo by Pi Fisher |
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| Photo by Pi Fisher |
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| Photo by Pi Fisher |
When the remaining adventurers returned, the ceremony resumed. The transition of power was made final, and Prince Skyros became King Skyros. In the same moment, he declared that Pacifica was seceding from the Imperium and banished all members of the Imperium from Pacifican lands.
Now that that was over, it was time to celebrate and feast. Shortly before the feast began, there was a small court. Business included King Skyros appointing ambassadors and deciding on how to deal with some captured Noxari, and Van Duke asking everyone what was going on (yes, that was the extent of his announcement). With court finished, the feast commenced.
Course after course of delicious food was brought out to us. While we feasted, some other small matters went on, including Van Duke having been replaced with a doppleganger and causing some commotion. I’m...not entirely sure what happened there, but it seems like the adventurers involved agreed on some future course of action to remedy this.
Unfortunately, after finishing dessert, I had to head home. Overall, this Ashenbounty was a great feast, celebrating a major victory for both the people of Pacifica and people of the Realms.