Between-Campaign Info

Things you have learned in four years:

The Aeon Priesthood is headquartered in Qi, a vast city of mind-boggling size, it’s population perhaps dwarfing the entirety of Thaemor. But the larger countries that make up the Steadfast are far richer affairs, and with that wealth comes politics and posturing and a war far too the north with an enemy some darkly suspect doesn’t even exist. The Amber Pope is powerful, perhaps even a just man, and there is no denying that the papacy learned many terrible secrets and lore from the amber monolith – Jisell alone was proof of that. But knowledge is a far different thing to wisdom, and the aeon priests found further from the capital, scattered about the beyond and seeking to understand the numenera for its own sake, tend to be true seekers and teachers both.

It is not as if the Steadfast is a terrible place. Far from it, but it is a place of merchants and armies, not one for wanderers who call none of their kingdoms home. The vastness of what the inhabitants of the Steadfast call the Beyond is many things – it is far more dangerous, but there are few kingdoms, many villages that seldom even see brave merchants, let alone seekers such as yourselves. There are caravans to guard, merchants to protect and wars to be had, but they are small things with small goals, the spectacle of the ninth world playing out like children with toys they barely dip into a sandbox.

Zia is, perhaps, mad. But she turned Milvane into far more than town. And the world is awash in information, in secrets, even in power if one has the will and wherewithal to claim it. Few people do. Most towns are small affairs, the inhabitants hungry to choose safety over freedom, but there are always other options, always new routes. And the further you go from the Steadfast, the less worry you have about local rulers claiming prizes or the local clave of aeon priests declaring that all numenera must be brought before them.

Even the Wandering Walk that some claim circles the world is crowded with hungry pilgrims and envying eyes. But further, east of the ocean, are lasts no one in the Steadfast as mapped. Towns, villages, entire kingdoms who may not even know the rest of the world exists. And you are strange, but not too strange for most places. The world is full of knowledge; the question is, what do you desire to use it for?