Chaos Bleeds

Fate's Design

“She isn’t the first topsider to come poking around here this month, and she won't be the last,” the Matriarch says, slicing into a cooked egg and chewing delicately. “We must take care to nip this in the bud now. We cannot afford to look weak.”

Amara often struggled as a GM to convey the mix of refinement and savagery when portraying a noble Dusk Elf to players during a campaign. But the gravel in the Matriarch's voice doesn’t detract from the way she lingers on her vowels and speaks more from her chest than her throat. Her back straight, chest thrust out, and elbows at her side, she is just as much royalty as she is sadist.

Amara studies the voice she is hearing for the first time. But it's also a voice she has heard every day for over four hundred years.

And, at least for this life, she is Amara's mother. Thellia's mother. “Of course, lady mother. She has talent, and I believe I can shape her into a weapon for us.”

“Oh. Indeed. Katta would love to see a follower of the Mother of Forests brought low and made servant to the Night.” Her mother reclines in the plush chair and laces her fingers behind her head, staring up at the crystalline chandelier with a twisted smile. “But do not show the little topsider any mercy as you do so. Break her. Make her feel like her fall was not calculated; but fate's design. And when she accepts that her whole life she has been dancing toward Katta, make her betray her former allies.”

“As you wish, lady mother.” Amara picks at the strange fruits on her plate. Much of the lore of Forsaken Realms is haphazard; each writer adding to the lore that which they personally found interesting. Some writers spent months crafting out traditional meals for each race and culture, making up fruits and vegetables, inventing new animals that could be raised for meat or dairy or eggs. And none are as dedicated to culinary lore as those who enjoy playing any of the races commonly found in the Underrealm. Fruits cannot grow where the sun never rises, so much digital and physical ink has been spilled inventing flora and fauna that can both thrive without traditional photosynthesis and be consumed by human-adjacent species.

Amara had never spent much time caring about such things and had assumed any eggs, fruits, or meats originating in the Underrealm would have an almost moldy or fungal taste to them, like beets or portabella. But she’s been pleasantly surprised so far with her very first meal. She just wishes it were not being accompanied by a rather sadistic lecture from her mother on indoctrination.

But what choice does she have? She needs a way out of the Underrealm. She needs a cause that will allow her to go topside without suspicion that would set the enemies of House Barlok on her tail but not cause a whole group of topside heroes to mark her out as an easy kill for XP farming.

A lot of scenario writers in the early days of the Forsaken Realms had used Dusk Elves as the “race it’s okay to be racist toward since they are all evil barbarians anyway, and you can tell they aren’t Real People because they let women hold all the power.” Ah, the mid 1900s was a heck of a time. And the idea that Dusk Elves were just Generic Enemies that can be killed on sight for XP? It continues in large parts of the player base even in this, the Year of Our Luigi 2026.

It is one thing Amara had been hoping to remedy with the Dark Descent; Chaos Bleeds module based around the Dusk Elves and other Underrealm denizens. She's tired of introducing Dusk Elf NPCs in her campaigns and having half the group roll for initiative and try to get a sneak attack in before even having a conversation. It’s especially bad with new players; a mistake her current group had already made a few times despite her warning them out of game that talking to NPCs, even ones you are suspicious of, can be more useful than attacking first and asking questions later.

She’s still not sure if there are others here who know this is a game; who have been reborn here. Or maybe it’s all just a sort of Westfall-verse dream scenario, and she’s going to wake up in a week and learn she’s just been in an induced coma.

Honestly, she sort of hopes it isn’t an 'it’s all a dream' situation. It would be a huge let down. She certainly wishes she had been reborn into the body of a Wild Elf or a Pheonixborn or even a Leoness. It would certainly be easier to survive. As a Dusk Elf, it’s not just outsiders who want her dead, but also every other Dusk Elf who thinks they would benefit from her death.

Oh well. She’s been handed fantasy lemons, time to make fantasy lemonade.

She pushes her plate away from her, signaling to the servants to take it away. “I’m going to take my new pet on a walk today. Get her acclimated to her new home. Let her smell the smells, so to speak.”

“Whatever you believe works best, my dear. Don’t be home late. Imeria will be here for dinner and she is bringing two males with her. I believe she is trying to ensure she has an heir before she accepts the position of High Priestess. And if she does that, you know you will no longer be the next in line for House Barlok.”

“I know mother, I know.” She waits until she is out of the room before rolling her eyes. In Dusk Elf society, women hold all the power. Men are merely for making heirs. You don’t love them, you don’t romance them, you certainly don’t form any emotional attachment to them. And her sister is bringing two over to the house for dinner, hoping her mother and sister will help her inspect them for suitability most likely. But it’s also a challenge to Amara—to Thellia. And if Amara—Thellia—were a true Dusk Elf compliant with Forsaken Realms lore, she would be trying to sabotage her sister’s plans to ensure her sister does not have any off-spring that could supplant her in the succession.

But even though the lore is written, it is not an edict; plenty of modules, scenarios, and even expanded universe books and movies have shown Dusk Elves who do not comply with what lore would say they should do.

Amara just wishes she knew who the game master of this scenario might be if it’s not her.

Oh well, that’s a problem from later-Amara. Right now she has a Wild Elf she needs to bargain with.

She descends to the dungeons, again waving away the guards and asking for privacy.

“You ready to negotiate the finer details of our bargain?” Amara asks Shayn.

The Wild Elf shrugs, rolling her eyes. “I suppose.”

“Have they fed you this morning?”

“You mean have they given me a plate of crap? Yes. They have.” Shayn inclines her head slightly. “Thank you for your consideration.” The sarcasm is not lost on Amara.

“Good. We will be going on a walk and discussing this further.”

She does not wait to see if Shayn is shocked or confused. She merely instructs the guards to have the prisoner fitted with a proximity device and given appropriate attire. The device is fixed around Shayn’s wrist and any attempt to remove it or tamper with it will be fatal. It is keyed to a gem Amara will control. Shayn cannot be more than a few feet away from her at any time, not without consequences.

Amara tries to recall if Erika had given any further details on how exactly Thellia Barlok tortured and indoctrinated Shayn, but it’s been months since their session zero. She wonders if, unknowingly, she’s going through all the actions Erika had carefully considered and decided to use in her backstory or if she’s veering off path.

Certainly, when Amara decided to incorporate the backstory Erika had created into the campaign, she hadn’t intended for Thellia to be anything but a villain. Yes, a Dusk Elf with a sliver of a sympathetic backstory—tricked by the villain into going along with his plan, not knowing fully what she was signing up for—but she wasn’t intended to be one of the ‘good-aligned’ Dusk Elves in the campaign.

She’s already veering from her own story. But she doesn’t really have another choice but to deviate from fate.

“You said I was to be your pet, your plaything. I didn’t think you meant that literally,” Shayn comments as she’s led out of her cell and the gemstone her proximity device is keyed to is handed to Amara.

“Yes, well, I promise to take good care of you. If you want to pick out a pretty diamond collar on our walk, I’ll allow it.”

Shayn snorts. “You are too kind, dear owner.”

Amara waves for her to follow, and they leave the mansion through the kitchen doors, avoiding any possible chance that Thellia’s mother will see them. Once in the gardens, Amara decides to take a chance. “You, by chance, do not know someone named Erika O’Donnell, do you?”

Shayn raises an eyebrow. “Should I?”

Amara’s chest tightens and her stomach drops. Not even a sliver of recognition; not a flicker of understanding. Either Shayn is not Erika at all or if she is, she has no memories of her life on Earth. Amara is still alone in this world. “No. No, I wouldn’t expect you to know her. She is an old friend of mine and I miss her very dearly. But she was also a follower of the Mother of the Forests, and so…”

“Ah. You think we all know each other. That somehow our connection to the land means we are all connected to each other? Wow, how little you know of the world beyond the walls of Minarethil.”

Holding back a laugh, Amara shrugs. I’ve expanded the lore for a good chunk of this world! How can she say I know nothing about it?

But Shayn is not Erika. And Thellia Barlok has never left the Underrealm. “You are right. And I hope you can help me with that. First, tell me about this Umbraith.”

They leave the gardens of the mansion and enter the city proper, Dusk Elves milling around but parting to allow Lady Thellia easy passage.

“With all these people staring at me?” Shayn asks.

“They will not overhear us. And if they know what is good for them, they will not interfere with us.”

“Right…” She pulls the hood of her cloak lower over her head. “The Mother of Forests came to me in a vision and told me that you had it and that it will be needed to stop an evil ritual. I know nothing more of it.”

Amara halts and Shayn, not noticing, keeps walking forward until the proximity device shocks her for being too far from Thellia. She yelps in pain and crumples to the ground.

Amara curses under her breath and rushes to Shayn. “I am so sorry,” she whispers. “I did not intend for that to happen.”

“A Dusk Elf? Sorry? Now I’ve seen everything.”

Amara holds back a sharp insult. “I truly am sorry. But I do know of this Umbraith. We just have a different name for it.”

Her heart. The Umbraith is her heart. Tollith the Devour convinces Thellia Barlok that a potion will grant her a wish. Instead, it binds her to his dark ritual, infecting her heart and turning it into a keystone of the rite. One of several.

But she hasn’t met Tollith yet, there is no bargain, there is no potion yet.

But Shayn is right. Amara wrote the scenario so that Thellia must die in order for the ritual to be stopped. And her death is already being flagged.