It is at this point that the narrative of this adventure properly starts, for it is at this point that the characters are assumed to become involved. The powers that be in the Haslanti League see a chance to better their nation and themselves, but only if they can extract the value from whatever sort of horrible magical mishap they’ve discovered. This provides excellent motivation for young Exalted aligned with the Haslanti League. Youthful Solars or outcastes loyal to the state or hired on as mercenaries may find themselves at the forefront of efforts to explore Swar. Characters who undertake to explore the matter for the Haslanti League will be offered a Resources payment. This payment will be either enough to give them all Resources ••• for five years or to increase their Resources to •••• for that time for characters who already have Resources •••. If characters take the payment as a Circle, it will give them a pool of Resources •••• for five years.
This is the kind of offer that the Haslanti are willing to make to any Exalted characters in the North who appear open to recruitment. The Haslanti will not hire anyone with known ties to another major faction (that is, charac- ters who have known Backgrounds such as Backing, Mentor, Allies and so on relating to groups known to entertain their own ambitions). The Haslanti see that this salvage operation will be difficult and will prefer to employ expe- rienced scavenger lords from the East if possible.
Also, unfortunately, much of the payment will come in the form of vouchers and lines of credit with the Haslanti government, rather than in silver and jade. Characters who
do not dwell in the Haslanti city-states will lose the equiva-
lent of one dot of the Resources payment, and characters who do dwell in the Haslanti League will never truly be free of recruitment attempts for “just one more mission” and the implicit threat of the instant evaporation of Haslanti lar- gesse. But still, some characters may be Haslanti patriots, and some others may be young enough that this reward is sufficient to attract their attention.
C
RYSTALOVERTHEW
INTERSwar does not rest over the winter. If characters come out before the first snow, then matters will progress as they progress. If the characters come out to Old Crystal after the end of the nine-month winter, they will find that the entire city of Crystal is empty, with the gates left hanging open. Similarly, characters who arrive in the spring will find the military camp at the gate of Old Crystal likewise deserted, and no evidence or signs whatsoever of where its inhabitants went.
Meals are found half-eaten and pipes half-smoked, and there are a fair number of half-pairs of shoes. Of course, to leave Crystal, the inhabitants would have had to forge through feet of snow, and there’s no evidence anyone ever did so. The only explanation for their disappearance is the word “SWAR” (a nonsense sound in Old Realm) written in huge red-paint letters in the town square in a perfect sorcerer’s hand. Needless to say, there were no sorcerers with perfect First Age penmanship native to the city.
The exact mechanical origins of this effect are left undescribed, but it is almost certainly some form of contagious Beguilement through the vessels of the three individuals who discovered Swar. Assume the effect is cloaked from retrocognition by some form of fatelessness that rolls out down from the heavens like smoke, falls quickly over the town and the military camp — and then is withdrawn, and there are no more inhabitants.
None of these beings is ever seen or heard from again. Even if Swar is slain wholly and its every nook and cranny investigated, they are not there. There are no ghosts of them in the Underworld, and Heaven has not received their souls for rebirth. This matter is provided as a terrifying mystery — thousands of people are gone with only a single word left behind to mark their passing. Storytellers can use the disappearance to play up the danger of the city or can have the characters jumping and fretting about the possibility that the Deathlords have their hands in these matters as well. If this adventure is to have any mysterious parts, there has to be a mystery, so don’t point the finger immediate at the city of Old Crystal.
Obviously, this reward is not the sort that is going to attract characters who can best Swar on their first encounter. The reward may, however, prove sufficient to draw characters who will subsequently become entangled with the city. Also, obviously, word of the Haslanti search for unattached heroes will spread, just as rumor of the discovery will spread among men and gods from the prayers and whispered secrets of the miners who happened upon the city.
Few know the specific nature of Swar, but all those who care to put their ear to the ground in the North will have heard the stories of the Haslanti League’s discovery of a great city buried beneath the ice. Servants of the Bull of the North, the Realm, the Silver Pact, the various Sidereal factions or, really, any group in Creation with the slightest eye on the global prize might arrive in an attempt to steal the thunder of the Haslanti and, instead, find they have laid claim to a terrible threat.
It could also be that the players’ characters are powerful enough to arrive on the heels of the news of how a dozen Exalted went into the lost city of Old Crystal and came out again totally changed, and set off across the land on errands they would not reveal. Such an event, at the dawn of the Time of Tumult, is ominous and sure to draw the interest of any powers that are not already attentive to these events.