La versione inglese è più in basso nella pagina.
The English version is further down the page.
Facendo seguito alla scheda del personaggio presentato alcuni mesi fa, vado a riportare la storia del personaggio da me ideato e giocato per anni. I contenuti sono riservati ma potete contattarmi se desiderate consigli su come usare Clio nella vostra campagna.
Parte 1 - Bryn Shander
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Avatar di Lathander, Signore del Mattino |
"Diario di Clio, Ancella di Lathander, Spada dell’Unico.
Io sono Clio, figlia del Nord, e sono nata il giorno 7, terza decade, del mese di Eleint del 1345 c.v. anche se ammetto che non amo festeggiare il mio compleanno.
Sono l’Ancella del Signore del Mattino, chiamato anche l’Astro Lucente
dell’Alba, di Colui che è eternamente giovane e che nasce e rinasce ad ogni
ciclo di ventiquattrore. Per alcuni è solo il sole al mattino, per la maggior
parte delle genti del Faerun è, invece, Lathander.
Tuttavia
in nessun modo posso amare d'essere chiamata quanto col mio nome, perché è
nella sua semplicità che mi sento maggiormente realizzata.
Una
fanciulla, che mi fu compagna e amante, disse “Le piccole cose: non c’è niente
di così importante”, e non potrei essere più concorde con ella: possa Lathander
sempre proteggerla, anche se le nostre strade sono ad oggi divise.
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Le Ten-Town, oltre le montagne Dorso del Mondo |
Non desideravo, né anelavo, la vita tra le mie genti: volevo di più, volevo altro, volevo inneggiare alla vita, volevo suggerla in ogni secondo, per non scoprire, sul finire di essa, di non aver mai vissuto.
Per
me, un'esistenza quale moglie che attende passivamente che il suo uomo torni a
casa, ammesso ci riuscisse visti tutti i pericoli di quelle terre, e questi
possa riscaldarle il letto e consumare una cena con molti bambini attorno, mi
appariva cosa spaventosa ed intollerabile: sia perché la vita nel Nord è dura e
difficile e grandi pericoli si annidano nelle sempiterne nevi dei monti, alti e
svettanti come a sfidare gli dei, sia perché per popolazioni inclini a vivere
nelle contrade più lontane dalla “civiltà”, non era poco consono esercitare il
proprio potere anche sulle donne; ed io non volevo conoscere tali limitazioni,
non volevo sottostare a nessuno, non desideravo che chicchessia potesse
comandarmi.
Vivere
una vita simile a quella dei miei simili, venerare gli antenati, servire il
culto dei padri, inneggiare agli Dei non era nelle mie corde, non tanto almeno
da farmi sentire un qualche scrupolo di coscienza nel non desiderare adeguarmi
a tutto ciò.
Ahimè,
quanto ero sciocca: e, forse, lo sono ancora.
Fu per noia, forse, e per il timore che presto venissi considerata una fanciulla da marito, che all’età di quattordici anni abbracciai un culto da molti giudicato debole ed eretico, quello della Dea del Piacere e Voluttà, Sharess, che alcuni chiamano anche Bast col soprannome di Dea-Gatto. In qualche maniera, io trovai Lei, ed Ella trovò me: la mia brama di vita nel luogo più impensabile, forse, attirò la Sua attenzione. E mi consacrai con gioia a Sharess, attirando pian piano l'interesse di altri coetanei e non, avvicinandoli al culto. Lentamente presi coscienza di me, del mio corpo e divenni Sua Felidae, dama e sacerdotessa; e, la naturale propensione della mia gente a maneggiare un'arma fece di me in potenza, sebbene con pochissime occasioni di valore fuori dalle coltri, anche una discreta combattente.
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Una rappresentazione di Sharess |
Alla
ricerca di maggiori piaceri e diletti, appresi alcuni segreti ed i cerimoniali
più intensi, così da diventare una sua Ancella, una sua devota prescelta: e fu proprio allora, nel momento in cui le cose mi appariva che andassero meglio, che al contrario
esse presero a precipitare e ne venne molto Male.
Difatti, molti giovani del villaggio, desiderosi di fuggire da quell’esistenza cui si sarebbero forse stoicamente abituati, come io invece non avrei potuto né saputo fare, scelsero la via più facile e volsero i loro cuori e le loro azioni a me ed alla Dea del Piacere: perché venerare antenati attraverso un totem di legno o un altare freddo e coperto di brina e ghiaccio, quando le loro preghiere potevano venir esaudite concretamente, nell’immediato, attraverso il calore di una casa, la dolcezza delle coltri, la morbidezza di corpi flessuosi ed ansiti di puro piacere? I giovanetti ed le giovinette vennero attratti dalla Dea-Gatto, e di pari passo Ella mi ricompensò per aver prodotto così tanti, ferventi, seguaci, specie in una contrada tanto lontana ed improbabile: v’è da dire, tuttavia, che i diletti che essi conoscevano potevano, al peggio, venir definiti sconvenienti o inopportuni, perché nessun Uomo, in tutta onestà, poteva negare le visite alla Casa del Piacere in qualche altra città oppure di avere, alle volte, incontrato altre donne in città lontane e persino aver costruito una o due famiglie di nascosto; né si poteva escludere che, in questi frangenti, alcune Donne incontrassero discreti amanti, ridendo della dabbenaggine del marito di lei, che stava affrontando in quel momento freddo, neve, pericoli sotto forma di troll, giganti o comuni briganti o di bestie fameliche, mentre loro si consacravano alla vita, al piacere. Per chi venerava la Dea-Gatto, devo precisare, la differenza era costituita dal fatto che non si appagavano semplicemente i propri sensi, ma che era importante anche appagare quelli altrui, e che questo costituiva la preghiera più forte ed importante perché, in qualche modo – oh, non mostratevi scandalizzati! – tale “preghiera”, chiamiamo pure così gli amplessi, sortiva subito i suoi effetti.
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Palazzo Cittadino di Bryn Shander, centro di scambi |
No, il Male che dicevo non venne da questo, ma da un fattore imponderabile ed inatteso: me stessa.
Accadde più o meno nel 1358, conosciuta l'Era dei Disordini; la crisi degli Avatar divini, l'anno definita, il periodo in cui gli Dei camminarono con piedi umani sul suolo di Faerun perchè scacciati o distrutti nel Pantheon di Faerun. In quel periodo, Sharess era contesa tra luce ed ombra e l'ombra di Shar, la Notte Nera, era forte sulla Dea Gatto... e sui Suoi seguaci.
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Shar, la Luna Nera e Selune, dea della Luna: le Creatrici |
No, non me ne accorsi subito, così come avviene per tutti i cambiamenti lenti e graduali, ma stavo
mutando: il piacere fisico non era più sufficiente e giammai mi bastava; presi a concepire
idee per ottenere diletto sempre più estreme, sempre più folli e, ispirata
comunque dal sacerdozio di Sharess, non mi posi domande, dato ottenevo comunque
i Suoi favori anche se era Shar, la Luna Nera, a favorire la deriva di Sharess. E trascorse tempo, da allora, prima che comprendessi ciò a cui
stavo spingendomi, il percorso che stavo intraprendendo.
Da
allora passarono circa tre anni, in cui le mie qualità si affinarono, la mia
percezione del divino e di operare sortilegi come sacerdotessa di Sharess si
accentuavano e, in generale, il mio ego cresceva prendendo una direzione via
via sempre più lontanda da quanto Bast in effetti professasse.
Avevo circa diciassette anni, o poco meno, nemmeno lo ricordo più, quando accadde.
Fu solo quando, al termine di una settimana ininterrotta di "celebrazioni" di cui la mia mente misericordiosamente mi ha negato spesso il ricordo salvo nei miei incubi notturni che, levando le mani insanguinate dal corpo di una ragazza – una mia amica! La sua anima mi perdoni, per pietà – mi accorsi di quanto avevo spinto lontano i miei desideri, i miei istinti, e quanto avessi contaminato me stessa e gli altri miei –un tempo- amici: dei diciotto giovani che mi seguivano nelle invocazioni a Sharess, solo dodici erano sopravvissuti, otto ragazzi e restanti ragazze, ma tutti con l'espressione di chi, forse, non avrebbe mai ripreso consapevolezza di sè: il resto dei giovani, invece, non avevano retto, alcuni per le troppe emozioni, altri- orrore- per le sevizie subite da coloro che, idolatrando il proprio diletto ed il proprio piacere, avevano obliato l’obbiettivo di saperlo del pari donare, e l’avevano strappato a viva forza da corpi dei loro compagni, guidati da una specie di erinni dal biondo crine, dalla pelle bianca, pervasa dalla voluttà e dalla maestà di un ruolo implacabile, dallo sguardo vivo e vitale, vivido e azzurro, come scintillanti distese del Mare del Ghiaccio: una Erinni crudele, che altri non era che io stessa. Come ebbi modo di scoprire in seguito, Sharess riuscì a salvarsi dal Male grazie all'intervento di qualche altra divinità, forse Sune dea dell'Amore, forse Mystra stessa, la più potente divinità, la Dea della Magia, questo non lo so.
Quanto a me, seppi subito di essere condannata...
(continua)
English Version
Following the character sheet presented a few months ago, I am going to report the story of the character I created and played for years. The contents are confidential but you can contact me if you want advice on how to use Clio in your campaign.
Part 1 - Bryn Shander
"Diary of Clio, Handmaid of Lathander, Sword of the One.
I write this account because, according to Kaalia, priestess of the Morning, my sweet, irreplaceable companion, admitting one's faults, putting one's inner demons on paper, is the first step towards acceptance, and what can open the doors of healing.
Sweet Kaalia: I love her with all my heart, but I don't know how to explain to her that it takes more than paper, ink and a crow's quill, to overcome what I have done, the evil I have perpetrated, the sins I have stained myself with.
Yet, she is wiser and more circumspect than I, and the Lord of the Morning speaks to her heart in a way that I cannot hope for, nor dare, nor can I claim to know: this, only because Kaalia replies that instead I am closer to the Light than she can ever be, since the strongest light shines in the darkness, and she, sweet heart, my love, has never perpetrated or known it.
Let there be no point in waiting or delaying.
I am Clio, daughter of the North, and I was born on the 7th day, third decade, of the month of Eleint, 1345 c.v., though I admit that I do not like to celebrate my birthday.
I am the Handmaid of the Lord of the Morning, also called the Bright Star of the Dawn, of Him who is eternally young and who is born and reborn every twenty-four hours. To some he is only the morning sun, to most of the people of Faerun he is Lathander.
Put like this, I may seem to be a devout and far better person than I know myself to be: but, often, appearances are deceiving and that is all that is needed.
Many names and titles have been forged, sweetly, poetically, for me: among them, two in particular, namely Firin, “Ray of the Sun”, and Lote’nya “fragrant flower”, are particularly dear to me, as much as Crusade of the Morning and Sword of the One were.
For me. In my favor, as a gift to me.
I, who am a warrior, I who am not yet worthy of considering myself the sword of my God.
The Elves have nicknamed me Nyelle, “Tinkerbell”, given the trinket I wear around my neck, and Ainwen, “Sacred Maiden”, because of the path I have undertaken and which to this day I cannot say has ended: too much is the evil that I have caused, and which in every moment of my life, day and night, I try to remedy.
However, in no way can I love being called as much as by my name, because it is in its simplicity that I feel most fulfilled.
A young girl, who was my companion and lover, said “The little things: there is nothing so important”, and I could not agree more with her: may Lathander always protect her, even if our paths are divided today.
Clio is such a name.
I have no surname because I descend from a humble family of the North: my father is a fisherman, my mother a seamstress and my sister Freja, instead, only after many years entered a priestly order, from the little I have learned, of Chauntea, the Goddess of harvests, abundance and birth: curious closeness between She and My Lord, to whom children and births are very dear, symbolized by the dawn.
They were good people, my parents and my sister: they are, I should say, good people.
People I loved and love, honest people, whom I have betrayed in the most abject ways.
How much, as a girl not even twelve years old, could I feel that life was appropriate for me, in the frozen expanses of the North, in Bryn Shander, in the Ten-Towns, where every single day is a battle, and a flower that blooms among the snows has the same strength that an oak would show after centuries and centuries of growth in the lands of the South?
For those who do not know them, the Ten-Towns are precisely this: a cluster of ten towns, a loose confederation of villages and cities that are found in The Dale of the Icewind, the far inhabited North, beyond which there is only death, monsters and a desert of eternal snow and ice.
I did not desire, nor did I yearn, for life among my people: I wanted more, I wanted something else, I wanted to sing the praises of life, I wanted to suck it in every second, so as not to discover, at the end of it, that I had never lived.
For me, an existence as a wife passively waiting for her man to come home, assuming he could, given all the dangers of those lands, and for him to be able to warm her bed and have dinner with many children around, seemed to me a frightening and intolerable thing: both because life in the North is hard and difficult and great dangers lurk in the eternal snows of the mountains, high and towering as if to challenge the gods, and because for populations inclined to live in the regions farthest from "civilization", it was not inappropriate to exercise their power even over women; and I did not want to know such limitations, I did not want to submit to anyone, I did not want anyone to be able to command me.
Living a life similar to that of my peers, venerating ancestors, serving the cult of the fathers, praising the Gods was not in my nature, at least not enough to make me feel some scruple of conscience in not wanting to conform to all this.
Alas, how foolish I was: and, perhaps, I still am.
It was out of boredom, perhaps, and fear that I would soon be considered a marriageable girl, that at the age of fourteen I embraced a cult considered by many to be weak and heretical, that of the Goddess of Pleasure and Voluptuousness, Sharess, who some also call Bast with the nickname of Cat-Goddess. Somehow, I found Her, and She found me: my desire for life in the most unthinkable place, perhaps, attracted Her attention. And I joyfully consecrated myself to Sharess, slowly attracting the interest of others of my age and beyond, bringing them closer to the cult. Slowly I became aware of myself, of my body and I became Her Felidae, lady and priestess; and, the natural propensity of my people to handle a weapon made me potentially, although with very few occasions of value outside the covers, also a decent fighter.
In search of greater pleasures and delights, I learned some secrets and the most intense ceremonies, so as to become her Handmaid, her chosen devotee: and it was precisely then, at the moment in which things seemed to me to be going better, that on the contrary they began to precipitate and much Evil came of it.
In fact, many young people of the village, eager to escape from that existence to which they would perhaps have stoically become accustomed, as I instead could not and did not know how to do, chose the easiest way and turned their hearts and their actions to me and to the Goddess of Pleasure: why venerate ancestors through a wooden totem or a cold altar covered with frost and ice, when their prayers could be answered concretely, immediately, through the warmth of a home, the sweetness of the blankets, the softness of flexible bodies panting for pure pleasure? The young men and women were attracted to the Cat-Goddess, and in turn She rewarded me for having produced so many fervent followers, especially in such a distant and unlikely country: it must be said, however, that the delights they knew could, at worst, be called improper or inopportune, for no Man, in all honesty, could deny visits to the House of Pleasure in some other city or to have, at times, met other women in distant cities and even built a family or two in secret; nor could it be excluded that, in these junctures, some Women met discreet lovers, laughing at the naivety of her husband, who was at that moment facing cold, snow, dangers in the form of trolls, giants or common brigands or ravenous beasts, while they devoted themselves to life, to pleasure. For those who worshipped the Cat-Goddess, I must point out, the difference was that they did not simply satisfy their own senses, but that it was also important to satisfy those of others, and that this constituted the strongest and most important prayer because, somehow – oh, do not appear scandalized! – this “prayer”, let us also call the embraces that, immediately had its effects.
It must also be said that in the North the cult of ancestors, of a strong Norse tradition, also included a rigid patriarchal structure and although in my house my father had never been rude or had ever mistreated my mother or me or my sister, it was still clear that he himself was the son of that society of outcasts who often came to the Ten-Towns to escape the law or to make a life after having led a bad one. It could even be said that such a pleasant, cold, inhospitable place, where people helped each other, where people lived together and risked dying alone, each had their own strength in the others, and that the communities of those Ten Cities prospered precisely because everyone did their part and everyone tried to contribute to the well-being, or at least to survival, winter after winter, except for the brief summer interludes of a month in which the snow began to melt slightly, some plants sprouted and even the flowers showed their character, persisting in being reborn.
No, the Evil I spoke of did not come from this, but from an imponderable and unexpected factor: myself.
I was drunk with life, I wrote: and the Lord of the Dawn forgive me again, even just for my memories, since now I hope to have cleansed myself of that side of me that was darkness and pain, because I pushed myself further and further, because pleasure could be born from many forms, even the most extreme.
The pain, the blood, the constraint, the suffering. Good Lord, how dark were my dreams in those days and how I was losing myself and betraying the role of Handmaid of the Cat-Goddess!
It happened more or less in 1358, known as the Age of Troubles; the crisis of the divine Avatars, the defined year, the period in which the Gods walked with human feet on the soil of Faerun because they were driven out or destroyed in the Pantheon of Faerun. At that time, Sharess was torn between light and shadow and the shadow of Shar, the Black Night, was strong on the Cat Goddess... and on Her followers.
No, I did not notice it immediately, as happens with all slow and gradual changes, but I was changing: physical pleasure was no longer enough and was never enough for me; I began to conceive ideas to obtain pleasure that were increasingly extreme, increasingly crazy and, inspired in any case by the priesthood of Sharess, I did not ask myself questions, since I still obtained Her favors even if it was Shar, the Black Moon, who favored the drift of Sharess. And time passed, from then on, before I understood what I was pushing myself to, the path I was taking.
About three years passed since then, during which my qualities were refined, my perception of the divine and of working spells as a priestess of Sharess was accentuated and, in general, my ego grew taking a direction increasingly distant from what Bast actually professed.
I was about seventeen, or a little younger, I don't even remember it anymore, when it happened.
It was only when, at the end of an uninterrupted week of "celebrations" that my mind mercifully denied me the memory of often except in my nightmares that, removing my bloody hands from the body of a girl - a friend of mine! May his soul forgive me, for pity's sake - I realized how far I had pushed my desires, my instincts, and how much I had contaminated myself and my other - once - friends: of the eighteen young people who followed me in the invocations to Sharess, only twelve had survived, eight boys and the rest girls, but all with the expression of those who, perhaps, would never regain awareness of themselves: the rest of the young people, on the other hand, had not held up, some due to too many emotions, others - horror - due to the torture suffered by those who, idolizing their own delight and pleasure, had forgotten the goal of knowing how to give it equally, and had torn it by force from the bodies of their companions, guided by a kind of furies with blond hair, white skin, pervaded by the voluptuousness and majesty of an implacable role, with a lively and vital gaze, vivid and blue, like the glittering expanses of the Sea of Ice: an Erinyes cruel, which was none other than myself. As I later discovered, Sharess managed to save herself from Evil thanks to the intervention of some other deity, perhaps Sune goddess of Love, perhaps Mystra herself, the most powerful deity, the Goddess of Magic, I do not know.
As for me, I immediately knew that I was doomed...
(to be continued)
#Torm
#Sir Alfric
#AsrafilIoelthrech
#Clio
#Lathander
#Bane
#Bryn Shander
#IyachtuXvim
#IcewindDale
#d&d
#forgottenrealms
#dungeons&dragons
#lgbt
#love
#paladin
#paladina
#redenzione
#racconto
#redemption