Celine’s secret: A short while after The Tragedy, she awoke to noises in Sanctum. There weren’t any guards around and she followed the noises and, direct from her secret: ‘Her mother, Princess Marianne Valardin, stood over Celine’s older sister, a sword in the older woman’s hand now embeded deeply within the gasping Audrey’s stomach. Celine remembers screaming, the torches around the kitchen roaring to life seemingly in accordance to her disbelief, and her mother looking back at her. To this day Celine swears she could see a mark on Marianne’s forehead, glowing in fire, for a moment, before Audrey, still alive, stabbed their mother in the neck.’ Audrey got blamed for the murder of their mother and lost her nobility, there’s more to this, but that’s the player of Audrey to talk about, not me. Celine realised that something evil had infested the Oathlands, and over the following years infiltrated cults and hunted demons. I think she was a fledgling fire mage as when she lost her composure or panicked, things around her got incinerated. I didn’t manage to witness anyone’s ceremony to get the clue for learning magic so she never crossed over.
Part of her secret was that her mother had an affair with a Malardin of House Lenoir and showed him the secret passages beneath Sanctum, which were then used in The Tragedy. (SORRY VALARDINS!) She never told anyone about that and carried it as a guilty secret. It was that knowledge that drove her passion for hunting down and destroying The Malardin Brotherhood which, according to her secret, she excelled at.
Elsbetta’s secret was that her previous soul, Cassia, was beloved by the dragons, and in partuclar by Talar. If I read the clue I have on her correctly he and she were lovers. Cassia was the First Duchess of Westrock Rach and she was also known as The Lady of the Lost Star. There weren’t many clues to find on her as the original player dropped her way back when and she wasn’t played until I picked her up last year. Talar was slain by ‘King Diamond’ during the Reckoning and, believing his soul lost forever, she built a lighthouse on Westrock Reach so others, if not he, would be able to find their way in this world or the next. Oh yes, the Cardians were hunting Elsbetta according to clue #3084, but I think they were hunting quite a lot of the playerbase at one time or another!
Timezones being a thing, and my own being really incompatible to staff GM’d events, I wasn’t able to join in metaplot events and missed out entirely on the final crazy wind-up weeks. I’ve lived the last few weeks vicariously on the sidelines reading all the logs, and shedding a few tears for a couple of characters. Shout out to Mabelle and her bees.
Thanks for the great times, those I’ve played with.