Demostratia
The Knights
of the Ark are champions of Neutrality, trying to keep the balance between Law
and Chaos. It is the largest knighthood on the world of Seralin, and consists
entirely of women. As often happens in such large organizations there are
different movements within the order, that explain the ideologies of the order
differently and want to implement its objectives in different ways.
One of the
largest groups within the Knights are the Amazons. Amazons believe that the
balance between Law and Chaos can be best accomplished by fighting against the
natural course of things (which contains of both order and entropy). One of the
ways they do that is bringing the dead back to life (with the raise dead spell). The revived dead
become beimana, or cheaters, and are
taken out of the wheel of reincarnation. They can never reincarnate again.
In Pretomournon’s
Ruined Tower District stands "The Unaligned School for Young Women",
led by its headmistress Demostratia, knight of the Ark and Amazon. The pupils
at the school are all between twelve and sixteen years. They’re trained to be
squires to knights of the Ark, and eventually after an internship will receive a
full knighthood. All the girls are beimana,
meaning they have been dead and were resurrected by an Ark knight, after which
they were transferred to the girl school in Pretomournon.
Demostratia
was born on the knights’ ark Utnapishtim.
As a young girl she was one of the most promising squires, and she was fully knighted
at the young age of fifteen. In the decade that followed Demostratia
accomplished many successful missions, and she rose steadily through the ranks
of the Guild. However, when she observed the knights’ "end justifies the
means" philosophy in action on several of her missions, she grew more and
more dissatisfied with the Guild's lessons. Her loss of faith successfully
hiding, Demostratia was offered the position of headmistress of The Unaligned
School. She took it eagerly, and she left for Pretomournon.
Her
superiors do not know that in Pretomournon Demostratia joined La Révolution,
the Guild that believes people should be able to choose their own leaders. The
entire staff of the school consists of revolutionaries. In addition to classes about
the knight’s code and philosophy about Order, Neutrality, and Chaos, students
also get lessons in political science, guerrilla tactics, setting traps,
assassination, and alchemical bomb making. When the students graduate they are not
only knights, but also terrorists. Demostratia's goal is nothing less than to
overthrow the leaders of the Knights of the Ark itself.
To arm her pupils,
Demostratia purchased a chest of magic weapons the dwarf Ibbo. This chest was
stolen by Ibbo from the warehouse of Vithimiris Reizensteijn. Reizensteijn is
outraged by the theft and has offered a reward for "the dwarf with the eye-patch",
but doesn’t know that the weapons are now in the hands of the revolutionary amazons.
Running the
school does not go in its entirety without any problems. The gang of The Basher Brothers visited the school a few times
to suggest “in a friendly but firm way" to the headmistress to move. After
some inquiries here and there Demostratia found out The Temple wants to draw a
magical rune in streets, and that the school is in the way. Demostratia is not
going to move the school, and so far she has managed to resist the pigs. The
Bashers, not used to knights who aren’t intimidated, have yet to find a way to
clear the school.
Another
problem presents itself in the guise of the young scoundrel which is known as
"The Romanticist". This romantic rogue visits the school regularly at
night to “honor” some of the older girls with a visit. Naturally Demostratia
and her staff do not want this, but they suffer the disadvantage of girls taught
to turn against authority: time after time the girls help the Romanticist to
hide or to get away. So far, Demostratia failed to catch the young man.
However, she
did catch the thief Esbern. Demostratia caught the handsome thief when he tried
to rob her office. He begged her not to hand him over to the authorities.
Demostratia agreed, on condition Esbern did a number of jobs for her. Since
then, an unusual relationship developed between the two, in which both are attracted
to each other, but neither wants a love affair with the other.
Demostratia: AL N; MV 12; AC -1 (banded mail +1,
shield +2, Dex); Human Female Fighter 6/Thief 4; hp 44; #AT 2; Dmg 1d8+5 (long sword +3, Str) or by weapon +2; S
17, D 15, C 14, I 13, W 10, Ch 14; M 8; items: helm of telepathy; XP 2400.
Thief Skills: PL 31, FRT 23, PP 37, MS 37, CW 90, HS 27, HN
1-3.
Location: The
Unaligned School for Girls in the Ruined Tower District.
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