Endless Isles: Crusaders
The Crusaders[edit]
After The Oath, there were some who didn't like what they saw. They wanted to return the world to how it was, by killing the immortals. Every last one of them. First they take your shadow, then they burn you, and you won't dance the shade away. These are the crusaders, who have 3 missions:
Finding 'Two Dagger Torriaeu' and reversing his bargain with Death.
Killing every last man to have taken The Oath.
Destroying every last vestige of knowledge of The Oath.
They are based at the legendary Fort Cross, where they take prisoners, and accept those few pirates who are tired of their 'life'. Then they kill those who cannot die.
"Look, kid, I know you've only been sailin' for a year now, so let me break it down fer ya.
Now, as ye know, most landlubbers aren't too keen on The Oath. But, well... 'tis bad luck to talk about em, but not all the True Living are content to sit on their scraps of land, doing the real work while the Deathless go about the Grand Game. Sometimes, for any of a thousand reasons, things work out so a spiteful Living fellow gets ahold of a ship and crew.
When that happens, we call em Crusaders, 'for the result is inevitable... for the rest o' their short lives, they go about tryin' to set things back to their precious 'natural order.'
What does that mean? Well, I'll tell you. Eternal imprisonment. They can't kill you, but they certainly can slap you in their hold, and eventually a nice cold jail... careful-like, so you can't do yourself in and go a-shadow.
It's ludicrous, 'tis. Madmen. Even if every True Living got together at once they couldn't imprison all of us. They're nostalgic fools, longing for a 'balance of life' that hasn't existed in centuries, and if you ever meet one of the crazy bastards, gut him and then run fer yer unlife." ---
A blanket term for any fool who's got it in his head that the Grand Game ought to stop, and who sails around tryin' to take the Deathless prisoner, forever, since executions are only temporary.
Most of 'em are just your garden variety landlubbers that got lucky and grubbed themselves a ship, now out for revenge or some peace and quiet or whatever… but some of em's more organized. In particular, keep an eye out for those Order of the Wheel nutjobs, with their mystical hoodoo and that terrible Fort Cross of theirs. No one comes back from there, shadow or otherwise…