Backstory for Mask of Winters

[Persell]

Can anyone point me to the backstory for Mask of Winters? I'm especially interested in who and what he was prior to his transformation to Death Lord status.


The circle in my group has found the shambled remains of a First Age library and I've dropped a book in called Sailing the Seas of Power and Despair by Mian-ju Hu. The first part was just me rambling as I named it, the "and despair" bit was mentioned by a player and tacked on. Mian-ju Hu translates roughly to "frozen mask." I say roughly because I speak no Chinese and used an online translator. I figured it might be interesting to have it be a book written by Mask of Winters long before he became a death lord.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Larquen Quen was his name, he was in the Invisible Fortress when he died.

 

[Flagg]

A few other things are known. Apparently he was a very accomplished Twilight sorcerer, and before he died he had a sexual affair with a Sidereal named the "Green Lady" who told him he was destined to rule Creation (IIRC).


He had some sort of relationship with the Solar who became Walker in Darkness, who was also in the Invisible Fortress, but whose identity has not been confirmed. Walker showed up in the Underworld only a short while before Mask, and whatever happened, Mask doesn't want Walker to remember it. We can assume it was malicious.


There's a personal theory I have, spurred by the empty tomb in the Fortress with the words "I shall return" hacked into it. I think Quen made contact with the Neverborn before his death, and made a deal with them that included the murder of Walker, and in return he would not only become a Deathlord, but would not forget his former life like the rest of them.

 

[wordman]

He had some sort of relationship with the Solar who became Walker in Darkness, who was also in the Invisible Fortress, but whose identity has not been confirmed. Walker showed up in the Underworld only a short while before Mask, and whatever happened, Mask doesn't want Walker to remember it. We can assume it was malicious.

I'm pretty sure the Abyssals book explicitly states that Mask killed Walker. And that they were lovers, briefly.

 

[Persell]

We're running Invisible Fortress right now and my thoughts on including him were totally at random. It would be pretty odd for me to have been so close to the mark. Especially considering how far away from it I usually land.


Can someone point me to the book(s) this stuff is in? I'll definitely drop a few hints in various spots and see what they do with them.


edit: Missed wordman's posts. Gotta scurry off and check out the Abyssals book now.


Thanks! And keep it coming, especially if it isn't in the Abyssals.

 

[Flagg]

I believe the only hard link in 1E between Mask and Quen is a comment in the Ma Ha Suchi chapter fiction in the Lunars book, referring to the Deathlord who conquered Thorns as "the vengeful ghost of Larquen Quen". The rest is extrapolation.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Its spread out, Abyssals and the Time of Tumult book.

 

[Charon]

Beofe reading anything on Mask, I decided he had been a Solar named Oreste who had dwelled in the invisible fortress.


I was amused to eventually discovers he was precisely in the Invisible Fortress (except he was named Larquen Quen) in canon too.  


But then it's not that impressive a guess.  I had read that Mask of Winter showed up late so I figured it meant he died a while after the usurpation.  Then I read about the fortress and decided that it was where he had survived for a few centuries.  In hindsight, there wasn't a lot of other possibilities.


In my campaign, I decided Oreste's (Larquen Quen for the rest of you) essence shard had passed on to the Twillight PC from my campaign.


I also decided that Oreste tried to leave the Fortress instead of die here (Though I'm now leaning toward the possibility that he went in the Labyrinth and commited ritual suicide in order to deliberately become a Deathlord and earn more favor from the Neverborn than the others DL : thx, Flagg )


On his way out of the Fortrtess, I decided he made a bargain with a Fair Folk named Nicola (modeled after a twisted interpretation of Santa Claus) which he never intended to keep (especially if I decide he purposefully went into the Labyrinth).


That was important because Nicola was pissed and when he saw the Twillight PC (on his way to the fortress) he recognized the essence and tried to force him to honor the bargain (and give him part of his soul (Several Virtue Dots)).


The Eclipse PC invoked the ancient pacts to force Nicola to negotiate.  They got him to agree that while the Twillight PC possessed Oreste's (Larquen) essence, he didn't have his soul.  So they made a pact (sanctified by the Unconquered Sun trough the Eclipse) that they would find Oreste's soul (or its reincarnation, though they figured he was likely to be in the Underworld) and bring it back to Nicola within the next 100 year.


At the time they didn't know they'd just made a pact to capture the soul of Mask of Winter within the next century.  I took great delight to point this out in the following session.


Quite fun.

 

[wordman]

Some  quick PDF searching yeilds:

• Abyssals pg.105 "Walker in Darness and Mask of Winters" sidebar.
  
• Abyssals pg. 106, mentioned as being Larquen Quen in life, Green Lady.
  
• Lunars pg 225, the "vengeful ghost of Larquen Quen".

 

[Flyck]

I believe the only hard link in 1E between Mask and Quen is a comment in the Ma Ha Suchi chapter fiction in the Lunars book, referring to the Deathlord who conquered Thorns as "the vengeful ghost of Larquen Quen". The rest is extrapolation.

That would explain why Mask of Winters sent the Chimera after Ma Ha Suichi.  The only individual who probably knows his actual name.

 

[Charon]

That would explain why Mask of Winters sent the Chimera after Ma Ha Suichi.  The only individual who probably knows his actual name.

Nah.  No way Mask believed the chimera could kill Ma Ha Suchi.  If anything, sending the Chimera would warn Ma Ha Suchi against Mask of Winter and make future attempt on his life harder.


If you need to try to fit this move in a master plan of some sort, it would be more likely to be that this is an hindering move or a diversion so that Ma Ha Suchi fixes his attention where Mask wants him to while something else his done.


But given how Deatlords are portrayed, it might just have been done because Mask wants to create some melodrama to ease his boredom.  That's apparently the whole reason he is toying with known members of the resistance instead of dealing with them.  Not wise.

 

[Gtroc]

may not be wise, but it is fun. toying with your enemies is always fun.

 

[Ker'ion]

Yup, just look at what happened in all of the James Bond movies.  And all of their knock offs and parodies.


"I just want some friggin' sharks with friggin' lazer beams on their heads!"


(it's probably not an exact quote, but I'm pretty sure I don't care that much)

 

[Alabaster Anathema]

Just Random notes


Yea Larquen Quen for sure


Him and the Walker Were lovers


Im going to say since you can get the sword of forgetfullness in the fortress that when Quen got all paranoid he killed walker with the sword


hence why walker knows nothing from when he was previously alive and barely somehow remembers quen


and the mask knows EVERYTHING about his last life

 

[Persell]

Thatnks! Consider the Sword of Forgetfulness murder idea swiped.

 

[Persell]

Him and the Walker Were lovers.

This was only a temporary thing.  They were not lovers at the time of Walker In Darkness's murder.


Also, as a side note, Mask of Winter's 'final death' is supposed revolve around him speaking his own true name.  There are other criteria to be met (I do not know what they are), but I know the final blow is supposed to be struck the moment he finishes saying it.


I'm not making that up either.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Him and the Walker Were lovers.

This was only a temporary thing.  They were not lovers at the time of Walker In Darkness's murder.


Also, as a side note, Mask of Winter's 'final death' is supposed revolve around him speaking his own true name.  There are other criteria to be met (I do not know what they are), but I know the final blow is supposed to be struck the moment he finishes saying it.


I'm not making that up either.

Reference if you're not?

 

[Flyck]

Thatnks! Consider the Sword of Forgetfulness murder idea swiped.

Third-ed.   :twisted:

 

[Flagg]

hence why walker knows nothing from when he was previously alive

Most Deathlords don't remember much. That's what makes Mask unique. He remembers EVERYTHING.

 

[Persell]

Reference if you're not?

I'll be damned if I can't find it.  I know that I read it too because I took a highlighter across it because I was going to use it in a game that was never played.


Best bet when I do I'll share it.

 

[Hanat-Osul]

It may be in Bone and Ebony; there's a section on the true names of ghosts (which includes an Arcanos that banishes true names from memory).

 

[tjcoonrod]

wow, I did not know that at all, that is handy knowledge! I'll have to check bone and ebony, considering I am running an abyssal game, where their liege is walker in darkness.