Richter's Notes

[Richter Abend]

Before he left for Delphia, Ardus told me that I should start writing a journal. He said writing helped him keep track of his thoughts, that it kept him sane, and said that I could use a good dose of sanity injected into my life to keep me grounded. I just laughed at him. I told him I was plenty grounded, too grounded, and that I didn’t need any of his help keeping my life in order. Looking back on it, it wasn’t the nicest response, but at the time I was pretty pissed off at him. Now, however, I can see that he was probably right. With all that’s going on, I need to turn my thoughts into something concrete, something readable, so that when the world starts burning around me and everything is going to piss, I can look back, get out of my own head, and understand why I did the things I did. I’ll know I’m not going crazy. Or maybe I’ll look at these pages and realize I am. Either way I’ll at least have some certainty.

I’m not much of a writer, so if someone finds this after I’m long gone, understand that I’m far more comfortable with a sword than a quill or a piece of charcoal.

Leaving Ilia

SPOILER: Click to show

I don’t remember much of my time right after leaving Ilia. Not the specifics, anyway. I was young, I was depressed, I was angry, I was confused. I had no idea what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go, just anywhere but home. I traveled a lot of eastern Elibe. I was pretty aimless about it. I only remember a couple of names: Julian was the first man I traveled any significant distance with after leaving. There was another J name, the hardass with the bow in the tavern, and the cloaked guy who jumped me outside. And Darius, was it? Or did Darius come later? I think I met Darius later.

I was constantly trying to pick fights. I was always looking over my shoulder, as if danger was constantly lurking around the corner, and looking back on it now, I don’t know if I actually believed someone was out to get me or if I was just hoping that someone was so that they would come along and put me out of my misery. You wouldn’t have known any of it by how I acted. Or maybe you would have. I don’t know. Big stick up my rear, trying to play everything off as the cool, veteran mercenary when all I had ever really done was serve in a company that had gotten slaughtered in a surprise attack. I was like a child trying to act grown up but instead ended up looking like a fool, and I was an idiot, really. I really was. I’m pretty sure if I met that myself now, I’d give him a fist across the face and swift kick in the junk.

Rambling On & Dismissing Some Rumours

SPOILER: Click to show

At some point I met a man named Rayl, his friend Crowley, and others they were traveling with. One of them was a dragon boy, Aeros, and one of them was Darius. This was when I met Darius. Don’t really know why his name sticks out to me. He really wasn’t that important. Anyways, when I joined them I thought they were just travelers, and figured I needed people to travel with. I remember telling myself that I was just being practical, that I needed someone to watch my back and that there was safety in numbers, but in reality I was lonely and too afraid to admit it. Well it turned out that while they were travelers, because anyone who is traveling is a traveler, they were traveling to Delphia because they were also insurgents who were looking to sneak into Castle Delphia and assassinate Kraft, the High Inquisitor.

I can’t help but chuckle under my breath as I write this. It was such an incredibly stupid, hamfisted attempt at an assassination. We must have looked like a troop of morons. We snuck into the city disguised as merchants and traders, ones who bought and sold chickens and weapons, but we barely got further than a local pub before the Herald sicked his goons on us. It was bad. At least two people died before we even escaped the city, Crowley being the first.

If I remember correctly, Rayl went off and made a book about him, Crowley, the great hero of the people/ He talked about what a hero he was, about his final stand against the Prophet, and people ate it up. Pretty much ended up using him and his life as propaganda, and I don’t know how real any of it was. If I recall correctly, though, Crowley was just a drunken womanizer with a swollen ego. Didn’t matter. He had charged straight at the Herald and had gotten two swords through the chest as his reward. Guess it doesn’t matter how you live as long as you die well. Makes me wonder how I’ll be remembered. I’ve done more impressive things in my life than Crowley ever did.

Tragic Reunion

SPOILER: Click to show

We fled to the docks after getting chased out of Delphia. I’m amazed we even got that far, much less that I’m still here writing this down. The soldiers pursued us all the way, and we had just gotten into a boat when, well, nothing short of complete absurdity showed up. There was fire, and what I’ve come to understand as the resurrected friends and comrades of Kenshin, and a big black dragon. Battle broke out immediately, absolutely trashing the place, and we barely were able to get the boat off of shore with our lives, thought Rayl stayed behind to help fight.

Etrurians pursued us, but we managed to set their boat ablaze before they burned ours and got away. I remember taking an arrow to the side because I jumped in the line of fire for some guy named Dirk. Again, looking to die. Tried to play it off cool, though. I remember muttering some mumbo jumbo about getting involved in tragedies when the others said they wanted to turn the boat around. In reality I was just scared. I was still overwhelmed from narrowly escaping Delphia, and now we were turning and heading straight back into a battle between heroes? It was too much. I remember feeling so small, and so helpless.

By the time we returned to shore, though, the battle was over. Good guys had won, and the bad guys had lost, and then out of nowhere the Archsage Athos showed up and warped us all to Bern to battle with Hargus. Kenshin was already there, fighting. The others joined in. I stood and watched, a coward, ashamed of my own weakness. It’s kind of weird to think that now I’ve stood blade to blade with Kenshin and lived. Hell, I didn’t just live, I struck him a worse blow than he struck me. Damonzahn has teeth.

It seems weird to write these things so casually, given the fact that at the time it felt like the world was coming down around me, but it’s been years, and writing it down now doesn’t invoke the same emotions I felt then. It was all so long ago, and in truth, unlike the battle at Salvation Point, or the battle with Ariston, I was a bystander. It feels less like I was participating, and more like I had front row seats to the last act of one of Elibe’s greatest epics.

The City of Zealotry

Salvation Point

Armies Gather at the Ostian Pass

The Battle for Ostia

There and Back Again

Even Saints Can Die By the Sword

A Chance in Hell

A Grim Plan

Into the Frozen North

The Great Spire of Edessa

Through the Snow Once Again

Abducted

Behind Enemy Lines

No Salvation

Arms and Arena Adventures Part 1 & Arms and Arena Adventures Part 2

Richter: Round 1

Richter vs Yaen: Round 2

Chaos in the Arena

Bern Under Siege

High Priority Target

A Long Way There

Village in Flames

Siege on the City of Heroes - West: Part 1

Siege on the City of Heroes - East: Part 1

Siege on the City of Heroes - North: Part 2

Siege on the City of Heroes - South: Part 2

[Richter Abend]

Name: Boreas
Magic: Anima
Tome: Fimbulvetr

Physical Description:
Unlike many magic weapons, Boreas is not a fancy looking weapon, almost resembling an organic creature more than a masterly crafted work of art. It is, however, a brutal looking weapon. A four-foot long double-headed battleaxe, one look at this ice spewing weapon is all it takes to know that it was designed from the ground up as a tool of war. The head of the axe is made of blue indium and curved into two, razor-sharp, wing-like blades that are perpetually covered with a thin layer of frost. The beard of each blade drips down into a sharp, curved point which is perfect for catching spears, swords, and limbs with a back-swing. The neck and handle of the axe are made of lightly worked dragon-bone, highly resembling the spine of some large beast, which gives the weapon some slight flexibility in addition to striking a slightly unnerving profile. The grip, on the other hand, is the opposite, a smoothly polished portion of the same underlying bone that runs through the rest of the axe haft. The weapon's weight is variable, and is heavier for those it doesn't like while being lighter for those it does.

Personality:
Boreas, like the ancient god of winter that is its namesake, possess as strong, violent personality, and prefers wielders that are steadfast, resolute, and competitive. It does not tolerate weakness, especially in combat, and unlike most spirits, Boreas is not naturally compliant. It will outright defy its wielder if it does not approve of them, and many wielders have even lost arms to the chilling touch of this dangerous weapon. Because of this, the weapon requires a forceful wielder to bring it in line, and only those truly willing to tap into their forceful, aggressive sides see the fullest extent of its powers.

Being an ice spirit, Boreas' power manifests itself in the form of a blizzard. When enraged, the axe will become enshrouded in an icy gale, the size of the miniature storm being directly proportional to the amount of combined rage felt by the axe and it's wielder. While the flurried head of an un-synchronized Boreas is nothing to turn one's nose up at, it is when Boreas and its wielder are truly in sync with one another that they become one storm. Shrouded in ice and hail, each swing of this deadly weapon leaves behind icy death in the form of stalactites, stalagmites, and snow drifts.

Origin:
Richter found this weapon on the corpse of a Maelduin, which along with the axe's gruesome appearance would signify demonic origin, but that is not the case. In truth, Boreas was spell-forged by an ancient spell-smith whose name has been lost to the annals of time. The story goes that in the years before the Scouring, this smith fell in love with an ice dragon whose name is assumed to be Boreas. The two lovers lived together happily until the humans declared war on the dragons, beginning the fearsome war of yore. The smith and Boreas tried to escape the conflict, to wait out the war in peace, but their efforts were futile as the war eventually caught up with them. Cornered by a horde of angry soldiers ready to kill the dragon and the "traitorous" smith, Boreas did everything he could to protect his love, but was near-fatally wounded and the two were thrown in captivity. Injured beyond saving, Boreas died in prison, and driven mad by the grief cause by having to spend each day next to her lover's corpse, the smith cut up the dragon's body, and in a torrent of tears, forged his bones into an axe of vengeance. Using the icy weapon, she broke free from prison, slaughtered the men who had captured her, and disappeared into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

Level: Advanced

[Richter Abend]

Name: Damonzahn
Magic: Dark
Tome: Nosferatu

Physical Description:
At first glance, Damonzahn is a masterly crafted sword of unique beauty. Its blade is not made of mere metal, but instead razor sharp, unbreakable obsidian that bears none of the chipping and grooving of a normal obsidian weapon. The fullerless surface is smooth and pristine, save for the gilded runes of an ancient language that are etched into the flat of the blade. The hilt, on the other hand, is forged of the finest gold and wrapped in soft, black leather, and the pommel is embedded with two 40 carat tanzanite stones. And the scabbard is equally impressive. The jet black sheath is made of obsidian like the blade itself, and covered with fine gold detailing that runs up and down the entirety of the sheath. However, as impressive as the blade is, closer examination of the sword reveals a creation far more sinister than its appearance would imply.

Personality:
Being an artifact ancient in age and almost extra-dimensional in nature, Damonzahn has a very alien personality. It radiates a frigid energy that chills both body and soul, and merely touching the blade invites the unnerving, invasive caress of the sword’s dark magic upon one’s skin. As dark and as vast as the Nether it is tied to, the ebony blade possess only one real drive: to feed and consume as many lives as possible. Nothing will satisfy this weapon’s eternal hunger, and as long as its wielders are willing to feed it, they will find no resistance from the dark sword.

Damonzahn’s magic manifests itself in long, writhing tendrils of deep purple magic that erupt from the runes engraved on the sides of the blade. Each tendril moves with an independent and otherworldly intelligence, but all are united in the same purpose. The magic seeks out the lifeforce of whomever the wielder wills it to, or if undirected, will simply claim the nearest source of life as its own.

Origin:
Richter found this ebony sword among a pile of more mundane weapons in a crate as he tore through a smuggler's warehouse while escaping an Etrurian prison. Lacking weapons of his own to defend himself with, he grabbed hold of the greatsword and made his escape. It wasn't until Richter found himself on the end of an enemy spear that he realized Damonzahn’s nature as a weapon of the Nether, one that possessed the vampiric power of Nosferatu, and used it to consume the life force of his foes, healing his own battered body in the process. As for how the weapon was created, no one knows. Perhaps it was spell-forged by an ancient elder mage, or perhaps it was spit from the Nether itself.

Level: Advanced