Atlas    Languages    The Multiverse    World Timeline Campaigns    Characters    Modules Creatures    Monstrous Index    Encounter Maker Religions Personalities Magic Items Lore & Stories Rule Additions    Feats    House Rules    Prestige Classes    Races Spells    Domains Links Archaios Ashes of Arend Cleansing Flame Dangers of Hana Hunter's Memoirs Inheritance Lands of Azhral Mendenton Quest for Beer Sinordin The Black Scourge The Golden Sword Tomb of Horrors Travels with Bolas Virtue Sin Love

The End of Brangorm the Brown

When Sasha explained the need for a replacement steward for the Watering Grotto of the Baranar, they were surprised to hear that the ancient druid Brangorm the Brown is still alive, for the Aspects had not heard from him for many hundreds of years. Notice was given to the other counsel members and various people were nominated for the position. Some choose to decline the nomination and those who remained were reduced in number by the will of the Aspects. Sasha was left to choose from the two that remained since she was acting on behalf of Brangorm and because she was familiar with the needs of the Baranar giants. The choice was difficult, but she settled on an earth genasai of dwarven descent by the name of Hannock.
    Hannock was abandoned by his dwarven father, left to perish in the underhalls. A group of Galeb Duhr discovered the child and, upon recognizing that the blood of the earth flowed through it, they reared it. The elemental energy in his heritage also manifested early on in his display of natural druidic talent. One of the Galeb Duhr, a minor practitioner of the druidic arts, taught him the basics of how to commune with nature. As one might imagine, having grown up among the Galeb Duhr, Hannock is an incredibly patient man given to great periods of contemplation. His power is great, but he exercises great discipline in its use. He is friendly, a capable arbitrator, and an excellent choice to steward a grove on the edge of a (less than exciting) desert. With the assistance of the ancient monoliths that are placed there, Sasha had little doubt that he would have any trouble protecting the sacred watering hole.
    Brangorm the Brown listened to Sasha's reasons for choosing Hannock and then the two of them spoke in private for three months while Sasha returned to the library to study more. Later, Hannock returned to her and said that Brangorm wanted to speak with both her and he. They traveled together to Brangorm, who then explained to both of them that he was ready to pass on and rejoin his spirit with nature and his body with the earth, but that before he did so he wished to give them a gift. Since he was imparting similar gifts to Hannock, he had called Sasha and Hannock to be with him in his final moments so that he could explain the nature of his gift.     "This gift," he said, "is a seed of power that you carry within you. Having accepted it, you will be forever changed; even should you later give it away you will still have been changed, though your power lessened by its absence."
    He explained to Sasha the rules governing how to bestow this gift to another, should she later decide to pass it on.

• Person A can only give a gift to Person B if Person B first gives Person A a gift or performs a service of some sort.
• They cannot be directly solicited, purchased, or bargained for. Person A can only give it to Person B if Person B hasn't asked for it. They have to actually be a gift in the truest sense of the word.
• Anyone can give their "gift" away, it requires no special training - just the will to do so, an understanding of gift giving (in the mundane sense), a very basic understanding of spiritual matters.

Then, with terrible exertion, the statuesque and crumbling giant moved, a rasping moan escaping its lips at the great effort it must take. Slowly, dust and bits of flesh turned to rock it raised its hand to its lips and then lowered it to its breast, and in a motion as though it were drawing something out, glimmering motes of light traveled out of him and encircled his hand like tiny stars of various hues. He selected one of the five motes and cradled it in his other hand, intoning in a rumbling and cracked whisper, "This, Annos, I freely give to you, Sasha, without expectation of recompense, for you have done well by me." He held the mote to Sasha, for her to accept it. As she reached out to take it she felt the great movement of fate and destiny unfolding about her. The mote was weightless and it sunk into the palm of her hand, leaving a brief circular eldritch mark upon her flesh that faded away, though she remained aware of its dim presence. Then she felt her awareness of the world about her tangibly expand in clarity with an ecstatic rush of euphoria and a tingling of flesh. She was briefly intensely aware of her body and surroundings as though her perspective was that of an existential spirit and her body but a temporary shell. She watched in crystalline detail as Brangorm bestowed other gifts upon Hannock, whose eyes widened as his body is briefly surrounded by four mingling auras and the motes disappeared within him. She knew that only he and few others can relate to this strange and life changing experience and feel a deep, almost spiritual bond with him and the giant at this revelation. The sensations only seemed to fade as her mind adapted itself to the heightened state of awareness, though it would be a long time before she forgot the decades that passed before this event, when she lived with lesser clarity.
    The giant quit its labors and became still. Then she heard its voice in her head, "And now I shall pass on to the earth, for my time is near." Then the Baranar giant became silent and spoke no more.