| The Willow Sourcebook |
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Well-omened at birth, beautiful as a child, astoundingly gifted in magic, Raziel became the darling of Tir Asleen. Her talents appeared in infancy, when formless lights floated over her crib. The parents, minor gentry, called the court magician, Vulsant, to examine her. The wizard was a bony man stooped with the weight of years (or perhaps of his long beard). He traced patterns in the air over the infant's head. He summoned flames to his fingertips and watched her eyes focus on them. He gave her parents nervous attacks when he took her outside, threw her high in the air, and watched how fast she fell back to his arms. At last Vulsant pronounced his verdict: "Top quality!" (He came from a family of textile merchants.) Raziel's parents lacked magical ability themselves, but they rejoiced that their daughter was so blessed. On her first birthday, Tir Asleen's king, Tanthalos the Eighth ("the Great"), said publicly, "In her womanhood, should she wish, she will succeed Vulsant as my court magician." The announcement of this honor drew applause, most heartily from Vulsant himself. "Good to settle that early on," he said. "A stitch in time saves nine." In childhood, trained by Vulsant, Raziel practiced sympathetic magic. In summer, filling her cupped hands with water, she brought rainstorms for dry crops. In autumn she cast a pinch of dust into the breeze, causing whirlwinds to gather fallen leaves from the estate. Each winter she held up a chip of stag's horn to summon forest deer to feed from her hand. It is said she rode on the backs of great eagles, who carried her to distant kingdoms and to the unexplored lands beyond, where she learned much from other sorcerers. Given Raziel's abilities, it is almost beside the point to observe that eagles large enough for a child to ride are unknown in our times. Whatever her method of travel, Raziel was often gone for days at a time. Once they saw that she always returned safely, her parents did not worry overmuch, and she enjoyed a happy family life. This contentment, along with a steady growth in skill, saw her through adolescence. She had long since left sympathetic magic behind, and even surpassed Vulsant's own abilities. But teacher and former disciple remained close, tied, as Vulsant said, by "the unbreakable thread of friendship." She grew into a lovely young woman with a wide forehead and chin, and, like most magicians, eyes of uncommon depth and color. Her circle of acquaintances included the court of Tir Asleen, Cherlindrea, many brownies (who, remarkably, never annoyed her), and - distantly - Bavmorda. LOVE AND RUIN Raziel knew Prince Mikal of Tir Asleen in childhood. But because he spent his youth travelling the kingdoms, they did not meet again for many years, until they were both nearly twenty. It was late spring, when crocuses and asphodel bloomed around the castle. Raziel saw Mikal astride a white stallion, his features handsome, his bearing regal, his brilliant red hair shining in the sun. None of her spells had achieved an effect one tenth so wonderful. Were she less wise, she might have wished for a token that could work her magic upon him. She herself proved to be that talisman, for love enchanted both of them in the same spell. Within a season of their meeting, Prince Mikal Tanthalos, heir to the throne of Tir Asleen, a paragon of royal virtue, respected by the court and beloved of the populace, asked Raziel, "Could I ever be worthy of you?" From that time of radiant happiness Raziel dates her decline in power. She left books to gather dust in the castle library. Her charms of spider silk frayed and drifted on the breeze. Amulets of oak and silverleaf and dragonfly wings withered for lack of sunlight or a touch. As more people saw Raziel at festivals, at dinners, or riding with her Mikal across the meadows, Cherlindrea and her other instructors saw her less. Vulsant warned her of the dangers of neglect. "You waste away," he said sternly. "You cannot summon wind enough to turn a leaf, and you create no more fire than a stove. Mighty Fin Raziel changes into a bird or a fish - in her fancy, as any mortal can. My successor, pfaugh! Better I had followed my father and sold silk than watched the hope of my kingdom decline." Fin Raziel heard Vulsant's lecture many times. At first she ignored it, lost in rapture. Later she found Vulsant tiresome, and then irritating. At last she responded, "Old man, you think I can't match you on my feeblest day? Watch!" With an incantation to call the lightning, she flung out her arm. At her fingertips a few sparks flared, then guttered. By her expression, one might have thought the lightning had come invisibly, and stunned her. Raziel broke into tears. "It's not fair," she said. "I've been so happy. Are spells like sad thoughts, that love drives them away?" "Spells are like stars, that you must study to learn their patterns. But no more word games. Choose your path. If you turn from magic, I wish you happiness, but I must find another disciple. I cannot think who it would be, except" - Vulsant shuddered - "Bavmorda." "No!" "She has become powerful." "You know what she has become," Raziel said scornfully. "All magicians have sensed it." "And yet who else?" Vulsant responded. To that Raziel had no good answer. Who indeed? DESERTION When Raziel left Vulsant, she found Mikal walking in a castle hallway. Her mood lightened at once. "My love!" she said warmly. Mikal walked on, ignoring her. "Darling!" she called. "What's the matter?" The young man looked on her disdainfully. "You are nothing to me. I love Bavmorda." For a moment Raziel could hardly speak. Then she understood. "Hold still!" she commanded. She passed her fingers before his eyes, and murmured an incantation, well within even her reduced ability. Prince Mikal's green eyes glowed a sickly yellow. "Charmed!" she cried. "Yes, charmed," responded a silky voice behind her. "Mikal was charmed to meet me," Bavmorda continued, slinking up to take Mikal's arm. With a snap of her fingers, she dispelled the glow of his eyes. "Tell her, Mikal." "I love Bavmorda. She is the only one I ever loved. I will make her my princess, and she will reign as a great queen." Horrified, Raziel cried, "How did you do this? Charms are beyond any one person's power!" Bavmorda smiled. "Beyond your power, you mean?" Raziel looked at Mikal, who had held her in his arms and offered her his kingdom. Now he looked back at her with a fixed disdainful stare. It would change when Bavmorda told him to change it. Raziel began to realize that nothing was beyond Bavmorda's power. "You can't sustain this ludicrous illusion," Raziel said, trying to keep desperation from her voice. "People will see. Magicians will detect it." Bavmorda snapped her fingers again. "Act normally," she said. Suddenly Mikal relaxed. Raziel could see at once that he was back in his own body - her Mikal, the one she loved. "Pleased to see you, Fin Raziel," he said politely, formally. "I believe I'll look in at the kitchen and see what the cook's worked up for supper. May I fetch you something, my love?" He was speaking to Bavmorda. "Leave now," she answered, as though to a servant. And he did. "I displayed the charm to you, because I knew you would appreciate it," she told Raziel. "No ordinary folk will detect it. As for the magicians--" She snapped her fingers a third time. One end of a silk thread appeared in her hand, while the other was out of sight down the castle hallway. "As for the magicians," Bavmorda repeated, "they will not risk much for so minor an incident. Life is too precious." She handed the thread to Raziel. "For instance, your friend Vulsant. The son of cloth merchants, a wizard! He begins to understand how easily the thread of his life may be snapped." Raziel narrowed her eyes. Suddenly fearful, she followed the silk thread down the hallway. Bavmorda laughed quietly. Raziel tracked the thread across the floor of the castle ballroom and through more hallways. No one else in the crowded castle noticed the thread, leading Raziel to suspect it was an illusion for her sight alone. The trail led her to the winding stairway to Vulsant's tower. Now Raziel began to run. She found him in his study, clutching his throat. The line ran to the hem of his wizard's robes, and those robes clutched him in a strangling grip. The old man could not cry out, only thrash his arms frantically. Raziel pulled at his collar. It writhed beneath her fingers like a snake. Gaining a grip, she loosened it enough to let Vulsant draw a deep gasp. "Sovatha toothok koloro--" he shouted. Raziel recognized the incantation for a powerful dispel effect. But the robes kept tightening. His fingers and cheeks were turning purple. Then, when it was clear the spell of dismissal had failed and Vulsant would perish, the attack ceased. Raziel and Vulsant tore his robes in their efforts. He fell to the ground. "Warned me -- face to face," Vulsant gasped. "Gave me -- plenty of time -- to defend myself. But--" They heard Bavmorda's laughter as the thread that had led Raziel to him burst into a line of flame. BATTLE WITH BAVMORDA Vulsant resigned his position at the castle. He lived in retirement a short time, but soon died of - apparently - natural causes. Fin Raziel will always believe his death was directly attributable to his failure to defeat Bavmorda. As Bavmorda had predicted, Raziel found no allies. "Personal matter," said some, while others simply were not strong enough to threaten Bavmorda, any more than Raziel herself. Most heartbreaking, and infuriating, was Cherlindrea. Raziel begged for her wand, the most powerful weapon she knew. The queen of the fairies rebuffed her, feeling no real concern for the world beyond the trees' edge (see CHERLINDREA). "Bavmorda has not threatened my forest. I daresay she cannot. When - and if - you master your skills once more, when - and if - Bavmorda threatens the whole realm... then you shall have my wand." Raziel berated her, argued, cursed her, but all without effect. So began a long coolness between them. Bavmorda married Mikal. Raziel abandoned her search for help, mourned her loss, and returned to the arts of magic. She brought new maturity to her studies, and eventually regained her old skill. Meanwhile, King Tanthalos the Great and his queen died mysteriously, leaving Bavmorda queen of Tir Asleen; and then began her oppressive reign, known as the Time of Whispers (see BAVMORDA). By that time no magician could deny that the witch-queen's excesses were more than a "personal matter." But she had grown too powerful to face. Raziel alone had the courage to plan for Bavmorda's defeat. Though details remain obscure, it is known she challenged Bavmorda to single combat, probably in the wilderness at the monolith group known as the Standing Stones (see the geography section, THE WORLD OF WILLOW). Bavmorda, always confident, agreed to Raziel's terms. The two magicians had no witnesses. Accounts from villages hundreds of miles away speak of flashes that lit the sky, a pulsating glow, thunderclaps, and explosions. Noises arose that panicked horses, and made every dog and wolf in the vicinity howl as if gone mad. Sulfurous clouds swept across the landscape without dissipating. After several hours the clamor ended suddenly. And, of course, Raziel lost. LIFE ON FOUR LEGS Bavmorda spread the news of her victory across the land. Everyone knew (as the queen told it) that Fin Raziel had been allowed to live at Bavmorda's pleasure. Bavmorda had stranded her on a small island in a lake below Tir Asleen, actually a widening in the course of River Freen. Rocky, uninhabited, fifty paces end to end, the island was said to be guarded with powerful wards. All of this was more or less true. Bavmorda did not tell anyone her cruelest and most exquisite stroke. She could not have prepared, for a onetime rival renowned for beauty, a more fitting revenge. Raziel now had a pointy snout, small ears, beady black eyes, a body round as a loaf of bread, and a furry tail, as long again as her body. Her four feet each had four clawed toes with a fifth unclawed but opposed, adapted to grasping tree limbs. Her fur was scraggly, bristly, and uncomfortable. She had forty-eight teeth. Fin Raziel speaks of her captivity on the island only in general terms. It cannot have been easy for the darling of Tir Asleen's court, one of the most powerful mages of her generation, to resign herself to life as a small furry animal, bereft of magic powers. It cannot have been easy to force oneself to eat grubs, weeds, and the eggs of birds; or to watch the stars turn slowly across the sky, knowing Bavmorda's brutality, unable to act. The years were long, but they taught her wisdom. She knew, as all wizards know, of the ancient prophecy of a foretold child, one born with a certain mark - and so she knew of Elora's importance and Willow's mission when Willow came to her island. HER RETURN TO LIFE Even after Willow rescued Raziel from the island, her troubles only grew. Her size stayed about the same, though, when Willow turned her into a raven. This proved fortunate, since it allowed her to guide Willow and his friends through the canyon maze to Tir Asleen. Next turned into a goat - Willow couldn't get the transformation spell quite right - Raziel proved invaluable again, when she taught Willow the shelter chant that protected him from Bavmorda's mass transformation. At last, he succeeded in returning her to human form, so she could turn the knights of Galladoorn from pigs to people. Though she lost her second battle with Bavmorda, she proved vital in fulfilling the prophecy of the queen's defeat. Raziel has adjusted well to old age. She finds pleasure in seeing the younger generation grow to mastery of the magical arts. She furthered that aim when she retrieved her own book of magic from Tir Asleen Castle's library and gave it to Willow. (See THE BOOK OF MAGIC.) GAMING NOTES 30th skill-level magic-user SKILLS Raziel knows all spells of good or neutral intent in your game system (except spells of resurrection, which are unknown in Willow's world). She is familiar with most evil enchantments but cannot (or will not) cast them herself. She is also skilled in survival, lore, history, and instruction. EQUIPMENT None. ANIMAL FORMS Raziel's intelligence, wisdom, and hits are unchanged in animal form. The other attributes are those of the common animals in your game system. She cannot cast a spell when in animal form. BAVMORDA'S CHARM In Willow's world, charm spells are much more difficult than in most fantasy roleplaying games. The enchantment Bavmorda cast on Prince Mikal is an 8th-level spell involving intricate ritual and contact with the victim for hours or days. The victim receives a saving throw versus spells or an intelligence check to throw off the charm's effects. The charmed victim believes whatever the caster wishes. The victim may easily be made friendly toward the caster. Once cast, the charm is permanent until dispelled. Only a magician more powerful than the caster can do this, so Bavmorda had no worries. A team of magicians working in close cooperation can also try to dispel the charm. Add together the skill levels of the team, treating them as one magician for this purpose. Then determine the outcome using your system's usual rules for dispelling enchantments. A magician can attempt to dispel the charm only once per month. |
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