Encounter: The Scion of Spring

Written by Sean Holland
Illustrated by Matt Meyer

The air around you warms with a spring breeze, odd for it is late autumn. The trees bud and burst into bloom adding their fragrance to the air. A simply dressed young man escorted by a glowing figure of a King wreathed in green leaves and flowers steps forward.

“Brave souls,” intones the King, as the gentle breath of spring blows over the area, “the Lord of Spring requests you aid lest the entire world be plunged into endless winter.“

The Stage is Set

The eternal winter of Neirave is upsetting the balance of the seasons, the natural world is spinning out of control. The Lord of Spring has a solution, by gifted a young man with a spark of his essence that can free the land from Neirave’s icy grip. But the Scion must be guarded and guided into the heart of the wintry realm to bring forth spring.

The King of Spring can offer amulets and other tokens that will offer some protection from the chill of winter but they will weaken as the characters move to closer to Neirave. The Scion is immune to the magic of Neirave and the cold, but not to other threats. Aisam, the boy gifted, is about 16 and was a farm worker before being chosen. He is looking forward to returning home to help his family.

The Scion will sense where he needs to go, he is compelled to find Neirave’s mortal body, tending to unconsciously drift in that direction. Once there he will preform a ritual that will destroy her and end the unnatural winter. The characters will need to protect him while he does so.

Behind the Curtain

Once the Scion crosses into Neirave’s realm, she will be aware of his presence but not initially aware of his location or of the threat he represents. But as the Scion comes closer, Neirave will come to sense the general location and recognize the threat he represents to her realm. A spark of compassion will lead her to attempt to drive the Scion off at first but soon her attempts will become lethal.

Once she see that the characters will not be deterred, Neirave will insure her mortal body is guarded, but not directly, she is not so foolish as to give away its exact location. If given time, the area will be strew with traps and defenses, both magical and physical, to weaken and deter the characters from their goal.

The ritual to end the threat will take the life of Aisam and the mortal spark of Neirave, and drain the last of the protective powers from the amulets, ending the winter but probably leaving the characters unprotected in the heart of dangerous lands. Someone with magical power watching the ritual will probably realize what is happening and that the ritual will cost the lives of two innocents. With the proper magic or devotion, a character could aid the ritual and give of their own life force to sustain Aisam and Neirave, but if they survive they will be weak and in need of protection as well.

Additional Notes

If Aisam is killed, the King of Spring can create another Scion but that is the limit of his power until Spring again returns to the rest of the lands and his power is reborn.

This scenario is design to end in tragedy, as Aisam sacrifices his life to bring life to the land. The characters can save him, but it will make completing the ritual while under attack much harder as one of them must help the Scion complete it rather than defend against Neirave’s forces trying to stop it.

Sequels

If the character succeed, the Lords and Ladies of the Season may look to them again as champions in the future against forces that seek to upset the natural balance.

The characters may wish to seek out Aisam’s family and tell them how their son died (or to return him to them, if they managed to save his life).

The Scion of Spring by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.