The West’s name is Danaa’d, and she is both fair and capricious, and of course she is a dragon. Known as the Arbiter of the Immaculate Complaint, Danaa’d remained independent from the Anathema who ensnared so many of the spirits of Creation to their side as the Age of Wonders teetered on the brink of self-annihilation.

It is in the heart of Danaa’d’s teachings in this Age of Sorrows that one does not need to rely on the cycle of death and rebirth to achieve enlightenment, but that it can happen here in the world, in the moment, in the curl of the wave.

Her philosophy and the vast Sea which she embodies calls to wandering souls, to all who crave independence and freedom, sun and solitude. Most are scoundrels because they are lost, and have been misused by a dangerous Creation that, true to its Makers, cares little for any individual life.

The wildness of Danaa’d’s world is growing in spite of the Dragon’s might: its pirates, its internecine warfare, its ability to get the Realm and Periphery involved hip-deep in things no sane ruler would put their toes into. There is an endless storm now that wanders the West beyond the islands of lost Okeanos. There is a whirlpool between the Neck and the Empire that swallows even the Exalted who explore it. Something is happening in the West… and the Night Driver believes he knows what it is.

Once the protector of the Endless Caravan, the Night Driver and his Guard sealed a great darkness away from the South, and the Caravan runs freely once more. Now the Night Driver haunts the byways of the Periphery, giving passage to the hopeless and succor to those faced by shadows of Creation’s enemies.

He can be called. He can be summoned, but woe betide the one who does such a thing frivolously. You found him… or he has found you.

You Are One of the Chosen

You are a Solar Exalted: a savior of Creation. An Anathema to the Realm that Heaven permitted to die. Your Light, your Exaltation has come to you recently. Travails and wonders follow you like lost children, and they have all your days. You did something, suffered something, saved something, resisted something that took all your strength and your particular cunning – and more besides. The cleverest or the quickest or the strongest or most wise wherever you were raised, something inside of you has pulled you to work for the world, to make things just a little bit better than they are in this Age of Sorrows.

This did not go unnoticed.

And then you had a chance. Things or politicians or the Realm or seeming-circumstance came for you. You were knocked down. You got back up, stronger than before and fought on… and just as all your strength was gone, the Strength of the Unconquered rose within you like His face upon the desert wastes: fierce, unstoppable.

You did something then, something worthy. It was certainly imperfect.

Then maybe you fled, because so did that initial burst of strength – and surely your efforts were noticed. There is still a burning in your veins to spend the power you have been given, to bend the world to what it should be, because you know that isn’t this world that you find.

Maybe you are from the West, and its Fae corruptions and Shadowlands are achings in your heart. Maybe you are from the forested East, and you do not want the darkness that has risen from the fall of the First Solar Kingdom to fall upon you. Maybe the South is your home – the desert kingdoms or the grasslands or An-Teng on the western sea and you found more heat there than you could handle. Maybe the cold north was too cold for you, and something hunted you there, and drove you to the moist, hot embrace of the West to escape. Maybe you were born into the Blessed Isle and your Light instantly made you the enemy of an island full of the largest collection of Exalted in Creation.

Who are you? Who do you seem to be? Who are you becoming? Do you know the madness that lives inside you yet? Have you felt it? Do you remember your other lives? Or is this the first one since the Usurpation? Are you truly Anathema, or will you be different?

How have you come in contact with the Night Driver and his quest into the West to find an evil he thought he would never have to face again, and did not truly survive the first time? What made him accept or find or choose you?

How have you gotten to the Kingdom of An-Teng to board the Night Driver’s black ship and sail with him?
What wonders lie in store, and what horrors yet to be the work of your hands?

Heroes