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 The Party: Marbol's Magical Chess Set

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The House of Ainsley
Keeper of the Dark Mirror
The House of Ainsley


Male Number of posts : 2312
Age : 51
Location : The Dark Heart of Bardosylvania

The Party: Marbol's Magical Chess Set Empty
PostSubject: The Party: Marbol's Magical Chess Set   The Party: Marbol's Magical Chess Set Icon_minitimeThu Jul 08, 2010 12:43 am

The Party: Marbol's Magical Chess Set MarbolsMagicalChessSet

Over two centuries ago, Marbol the Masterful was an archmage, a scholar and a tactician of considerable repute, and his counsel was sought by all manners of public figures, from merchants to knight-captains to the Faceless and Eternal Emperor himself.  On entering his winter years, he retired from the role of traveling sage--as he had retired from his stays as an adventurer and a chancellor of a wizard's guild in bygone years--and settled down to pursue his one favorite pasttime: chess.  Laying his roots in Quinquevinea, Fioriallia, he founded an Upper Class game shop from which he sold all manners of games--specializing in chess, of course--and each piece and each gameboard was sculpted by his own hands, from wood, from marble, from tin, from gold or from gemstone, or from any number of other materials suitable for such needs.

He continued to travel from time to time, mostly to gather the aforementioned materials for use in fabricating his games.  And behind it all he continued to sculpt and enchant his most prized chessboard ever, his intended masterpiece and the crowning achievement of his lifelong passion.

The specific origins of Marbol's Magical Chess Set remain shrouded in mystery, but all pertinent rumors suggest that genuine bodies and souls were among the chief components.  A high priest and lifelong friend of Marbol, who feared the approach of Death from his inexorable pestilence and begged his friend for a chance at immortality.  A handmaiden, struck down by a poisoned arrow meant for Marbol, pleading for the archmage to save her life in the only way he knew how.  A pompous knight who displeased Marbol with his narcissistic primping and self-obsession, brusquely dismissing the archmage when told that his youth and beauty could not be preserved forever...prompting Marbol to curse the knight by giving him exactly what he wanted.  A powerful enchantress and rival archmage who challenged Marbol to a wizard's duel, ultimately ending in her defeat after a fortnight of thunder and ruin.  And King Krosunus II of Omikoros, a dark, ambitious regent who, with his two most trusted advisors, strove for many years to shackle Marbol to the king's will, ultimately vanishing from his throne at the stroke of midnight to suffer an equal and perverse fate.  These tales and more can offer but hints at the origins of those pieces of black rose marble and carved white pearl, for only Marbol himself was privy to the chess set's creation.

But Marbol himself, long-lived as he was, could not forestall Death's approach forever.  After two centuries of life he ultimately yielded to the inevitable, but before that hour he bestowed unto each of his dearest friends and most esteemed fellows a number of the thirty-two pieces of Marbol's Magical Chess Set, with one exception: the White King, which to anyone's knowledge remains entombed with Marbol's bones to this day.  Some ambitious thieves--what few have succeeded in locating his tomb--have sought to plunder the tomb of Marbol the Masterful, but all have fallen in their attempts.  Even in death should an archmage be feared.

Of the remaining thirty-one pieces, they have changed hands repeatedly through the centuries, whether through gift or through trade, through inheritance, through accidental loss, or through theft or robbery or murder.  Many aspiring souls have attempted to gather and reconstitute Marbol's Magical Chess Set, but thus far no one has succeeded.  And though great power allegedly awaits the one who accomplishes just that, all can but guess at what that power truthfully is.  What is known is that, in his twilight years, the elderly Marbol in his travels would take residence at a great, formidable castle built from alternating black stones and white stones, with a keep at either end of it and with a population of hundreds of servants.  And that castle would never be found at the same site twice.

Be tireless and vigilant, and keep your Detect Magic spells at hand; the ambitious House of Ainsley--or an equally ambitious party in their service--could yet become the ones who reassemble the fantastic work that is Marbol's Magical Chess Set.



Corwin Ainsley:
No pieces yet.

Karnoz Tellen:
No pieces yet.

Sylvea Aringerille:
No pieces yet.

Keitha Ainsley:
White Pawn (1)

Keagon Ainsley:
Black Pawn (1)

Gustov Ainsley:
No pieces yet.
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