Harbingers

Hello everybody!

A lot of people have been asking me lately for information on the Harbingers, so I will tell you all what I’ve been able to learn. I was hesitant to do it at first, because I thought that talking about them would spread their influence. I thought that, by knowing about them, people make themselves targets. But I don’t think that’s true now. Telling others about them only affects their power so far as knowing about them may cause the emotions that they feed on, like fear. If you don’t want to be involved with them, then you should stop reading this missive, but they are getting worse and they really really really need to be stopped. So this is what I’ve been able to learn from my own experience, and from others who have met them, and from Mr. S. Nagel, who has also been researching them for a long time:

There are four of them, and each one thrives off of an unpleasant emotion, specifically fear, suffering, sorrow, and rage. They’re big bullies, older than the gods, and have existed since the First Age, and when they all start to appear in the same place (which, so far, three of them have been appearing here in Travance that I know of), they leave “devastation of mind, body, and spirit” in their wake. Their power works through psionics. Some people thought that they might be espers, but they’re not. They’re similar in some ways, but they’re not the same thing.

People have sacrificed living people to them in the past, but they don’t actually ask for the sacrifices to be made. People have just done it because they were scared and didn’t know what else to try, so they tried to appease them. But it doesn’t actually help. It just makes it worse because, while they don’t much care about the sacrifices being made, the Harbingers can feed off of the emotions of the people left behind after the fact.

When they come to this realm, they are connected to specific places that are particularly heavy with each of their respective emotions. These are places that the people living nearby usually refuse to go because they get filled with bad feelings, visions, and compulsions when they do. I don’t blame them for not wanting to go there. But our best chance of stopping them is to find the places they’re connected to and either destroy them or cleanse them or something. I’m not entirely sure. Mr. Nagel said that it’s hard to say because reports of them have come from all different places and languages throughout history, and translations have been unclear. When it’s done, though, the Harbingers go away, and don’t come back for about a hundred years. Each one is connected to one place at a time, but that place changes each time they return.

This is what I’ve been able to learn about each of the Harbingers individually:

The Lord of Tears (The Harbinger of Fear)

This one looks like a tall, dark figure with a horse skull for a face. He’s the strongest of the four, and the one who had the most written about him. He comes to people in their dreams and shows them their greatest fears. As far as I know, for a long time, he was only able to attack people in their dreams, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore, especially since he was one of the two who were walking around the proper the night before the last feast. I heard about a ritual that was performed trying to force him into a corporeal form, but it failed because not all of those who were most affected by him were there. If it were attempted again with the right people there, it might work better.

The Chain Warden (The Harbinger of Suffering)

This is the one that I’ve dealt with the most, though I don’t know what he looks like really because the one time I saw him, he was just a shape, and I only saw it for a second before I fell down in the snow. All I could see was that he was tall and broad-shouldered. When he comes, I hear a voice singing a song. Sometimes it’s my voice. Sometimes it’s not. But the song goes like this:
“Cling-Clang go the chains.
Someone’s out to find you.
Cling-Clang. Oh the chains.
The Warden’s right behind you.”
If you hear that, or the sounds of clanging chains, that’s probably him. Be careful. He can hurt people’s souls directly. To most people, his victims look like there’s nothing wrong with them except that they hurt a lot, but to anyone who can see spirits, they can see all the wounds. Those injuries can’t be healed the normal way. It takes a lot of power to heal these wounds, possibly from multiple power sources, and usually more than one person, with an elaborate set-up and powerful protections. The first group of his victims had seven people who I’ve been trying to take care of for months. Of those seven, four are recovering well, but three were driven mad by it and they keep hurting themselves, and one of those three killed himself.

The Bloody Queen (Harbinger of Sorrow)

She looks like a woman in a white dress with blood all over her face. I don’t know as much about her as I do about the Chain Warden, but I know that when I was near her, she made me see a vision of something that made me very sad, but it wasn’t real. She’s also the one most strongly associated with the sacrifices that I mentioned before. There’s a record of a time when she stood and watched without any emotion while lots of children were sacrificed to her, and she just listened to the parents cry. Some of them supposedly killed themselves too, like the one victim of the Chain Warden.

(Harbinger of Rage)

I don’t know anything about this one yet. Not even its name. As far as I know, it hasn’t arrived in Travance yet, but I think it will join the others here soon, especially since a lot of people are very very angry about what the others have done to people in town over the past two years.

Those are all of the facts that I know about them. I’m still trying to learn more, and I’m still writing to Mr. Nagel to compare notes and see what else we can work out together. If you have any more information that I don’t, or if you’ve encountered any of them, please either answer this post or send me a private missive and tell me whatever you can. There isn’t much about these big meanies in books, so the more you can tell me about your experiences, the more we can learn about them and how to stop them.

Most important, I think, is to remember that they have come to feed off of your unhappy feelings. I know it’s hard, but it’s important to try not to let them get to you with their visions and whispers. You have to remember that they’re liars. For example, the Chain Warden was whispering to me, and my friend saw that something was wrong and kept asking me what., She said she couldn’t help me if I didn’t tell her what was happening. And the Warden started saying “Yes, tell your friends. Drag them into this so you can watch them go mad too.” But just knowing about the Harbingers isn’t what gives them power. It’s the emotions. He was acting like the bully he is and trying to trick me into thinking I was alone because it’s easier to hurt people when they’re isolated. Don’t let them do that to you. And when the Bloody Queen showed me a vision, it was of the past. Of something that might have been, but wasn’t. She showed me all of the people I’ve ever healed dying because my power failed. Because I failed. But that’s not how it happened, is it? It was a lie. The visions they show you are lies. Remember that. And remember that if they feed off of emotions, then they don’t want to kill you, because if you die, how can they feed off of you? Every death related to the Harbingers that I’m aware of was either a suicide or one of the sacrifices that they didn’t ask for. So I know it’s hard to control how you feel, but try not to let them scare you or hurt you or make you angry or sad. Try not to feed them.

Based on what I’ve learned, I think that the best things we can do are to figure out where their locations are. Where we’ve seen them doesn’t tell us where we need to go because where they hunt and where they live are not the same. The best way to find them is probably divination, and assistance from an empath could probably help. Finding a way to protect our minds from them would be very very very very helpful too, especially if we are going to those places that resonate with fear, suffering, sorrow, or rage. There’s also the ritual that was done that tried to force the Lord of Tears into corporeal form. It may work if we can get all of the people most strongly affected by him to participate. And if it works for him, it may work for the others as well. If we can do that, maybe we can do more than send them away for a hundred years.

I hope this is helpful.

-Midori Suarez
Daughter of Mercy

P.S. If you’ve seen or heard or felt the presence of any of the Harbingers, or you know anything that I didn’t say here, please please PLEASE write to me. We may need your help to stop them.

P.P.S. Please don't eat them. Or let anyone else eat them. Particularly Mr. Moostrav.

Midori,

I don't know what I can do to help, but whatever you need of me is yours. I will protect you and yours until there is no life left in me. I see the damage these creatures have wrought on my captain, my shipmates, and you, cousin. I will not rest until these things are dealt with. You have my word.

Tris

These things are no stronger
Than your own spirit.
Your resolve is harder than steel.
Show no fear, they can't hurt you.
Have no fear and they are powerless.

V. Kainen






________________

Midori,

Thank you for your studious report regarding these Harbingers. As stated before, this Chain Warden is heretical towards my Goddess, causing pain and suffering with no desire to lead to improvements in the soul. You have my aid against these creatures.

Thank you Midori.
I am more than willing to stare down these creatures. If you need my help, just ask.

***NOT REYNA***

Midori, I will be in the Proper this month, and although we have not met, I would like to offer my assistance in this matter. Please let me know if you should need anything.
Leah Antoinette Windsor-Kainen Jorth

Thank you, Midori, this is incredibly thorough and seems very likely to be helpful.

Unnerving, but helpful.

Starling dont ferget yore faymis saying.

-Chet

Possibly a silly question. What are they the Harbringers of?

-Robert Morgan

The Lord of Tears is the Harbinger of Fear.
The Chain Warden is the Harbinger of Suffering.
The Bloody Queen is the Harbinger of Sorrow.
I don't know the name of the Harbinger of Rage.

Oh good. And here I was worried they were harbringers/messengers of a much more dangerous being. Or worse, beings that helped lock away a much more powerful being, and reappear every hundred years to feed, so they might keep said being locked away...

-Robert Morgan

Not as far as I know. But we can try to find out for sure.

- Midori Suarez
Daughter of Mercy

Thank you for your efforts. We owe the victory to Swyft, Thalia, and yourself, Midori

Dear Mr. Grimkjell,

Thank you. That is kind of you to say. But a lot of people were very important to this fight, not just us three.

Speaking of which, they're not gone forever, and several of us who might still be alive the next time around want to be ready for them in a hundred years or so. To that end, everyone who helped us fight them at all can help by sending me missives describing what happened at each of the anchor locations, or anything they said to you, or anything at all you think might be useful. I've learned a lot about them this year, but certainly not everything. And I saw a lot, but I didn't see everything. Tell me what you know in as much detail as you can, and we can make sure that the knowledge is preserved, so that when they come back, the world isn't blind-sided like this again.

I will probably post this again as its own missive soon. But now I have to go check on some people.

- Midori Suarez
Daughter of Mercy

Grimkjell,

There were so many involved in this. I only gave a small part. But we can all give a big part in preserving this for history. Much of what I found came through unconventional means including from stories only heard in oral histories. I hope to start these stories from this last encounter and get them circulating.

Midori, please share with me what you receine so I can put this in words to last through the ages.

Thalia Maloovic Mc Pherson McKraeger.

It would be my honor to recite these tales again in the future, and give a good account of this. I will ensure that Skalds and scholars both know this, that it might not pass from the knowledge of people, and we can carry hope and bravery with us as shields and swords for when they Harbingers return once more.

All,

As curator of the Grand Library at the Darkwood Academy for the Metaphysical Arts, I would like to compile these stories and commit the resulting tome to our collection. I can arrange for interviews, or take letters, at my cottage at the Darkwood campus in the Baronial Estate, or can make myself available elsewhere if need be.

While I was not personally involved in as much of the resistance effort as I would have liked to have been, due to my sudden weakness, I want to be sure that my successors, my students, and Arawyn, are prepared when the time comes that we must pass the Centennial Torch on to the next generation. And, Fates allowing, I may find myself personally around when the time comes. Though I am no longer immortal (at least not currently), and though we do not yet know the extent of a Sylph's longevity, I would wager I comfortably have at least another century in me.

--Mantel Warrane