Corby

The Raven King

Folklore

Everyone knows in the olden days, a prince or princess had to be careful. If you were too haughty or too witty or too lovely, you might be stolen away on a misty winter's night to come to the Court of the Raven King, to dance among the snow-clad roses and feast of the tables of the Mistyholt.

In all the patchwork lands of the Tapestry, there were stories of him: the Raven King, the Corby Man, Black of Feather, Maid-Taker, the Mist-Cloaked, the Minstrel of Crows, Youth-Snatcher, the Blackthorne Lord. Clad in a cloak of coiling mists, with his Blackthorne Stave in hand and a raven upon his shoulder, the lovely Lord of Mistyholt came.

Entire traditions within the cultures of the Tapestry came about because of him: the Aubenwrathi forbade their children to leave their homes without the veils and scarves they are known for, lest he see their beauty. Villages in Beldenshire are surrounded in whitethorne hedges, known to keep mists and the power of blackthorne out. Midwives in Sargeras mark the faces of newborns with a tiny knife, to mar the perfect beauty of a newborn, just as the tribesmen of Yranmure all tattoo the faces of the newly-initiated twelve-year-olds of their tribes to aver his gaze. Maidens who think too much of their own beauty find their mirrors stolen from their rooms and left outside the house door in winter, their glass smeared with raven's blood, to ward away the Raven King and to warn the young girl of the dangers of her pride.

Scarecrows Tapestry-wide are often given heads of white woolen hair and black surcoats with cloaks of black feathers and a black staff in hand, hoping to convince the crows that the field of crops is claimed by their king so they will leave it uneaten. Finding a dead crow is bad luck, particularly if it was killed by the hand of men; bringing it to a thorne-crone can aver the Raven King's wrath, however, as can burying the dead bird at the base of a stand of blackthorne.

Aspects

Skills

• Great: Lore (+4)
• Good: Rapport (+3), Stealth (+3)
• Fair: Deceit (+2), Resources (+2), Will (+2)
• Average: Fight (+1), Athletics (+1), Empathy (+1), Notice (+1)

Stress

• Physical: 2
• Mental: 3

Once-and-Future Raven King (High Concept)

Corby was once the Raven King. The legend of the Raven King is closely entwined with corvids of all kinds: ravens, crows, corbies, jackdaws, rooks and magpies. They are his true subjects, and he their true and only liege. It is said that he could speak freely with them, and they with him. His feathered subjects are found all over the Tapestry, and their cold black eyes watched for him, bringing him interesting whisperings every day at twilight: news of kingdoms and battles, the doings of mortals great and small, and most especially where the most beautiful youths and maidens might be found to be brought to his great hidden tower, Mistyholt.

In battle, the Raven King was known to have summoned great clouds of fierce ravens and birds, virtual storms of tearing beaks and talons. Great murders of crows were thought to herald his arrival to an area, and many communities put aside a small portion of the grain from their harvests, called the Crow's Portion, to leave out in the winter snows for the black birds, with requests that they tell the Raven King nothing about them.

His legend also speaks of a few noteworthy subjects: the thirteen Raven Knights, a murder of massive eagle-sized ravens who were his fiercest defenders; the Jackdaw Viziers, who gathered the lore the other birds brought to him and presented the most noteworthy; his Blackthorne Rooks, sanctified witchbirds who visited those old women called thorne-crones by the superstitious; and his Courtier Crows, beautiful jewel-breasted birds who acted as the boon companions of the children of his Stolen Court.

A Jailbird Freed (Low Concept)

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Eye for Beauty (Trouble)

Bright shining eyes
Where the raven flies
When parts the mist
All winter-kissed
A son or daughter dies!
- A Midwife's Wisdom from Aubenwrath

Round spins the pretty lass, pretty lass, pretty lass!
Long about the Winter-Mass, Winter-Mass, Winter-Mass!
Her song it calls the Corby Man, Corby Man, Corby Man!
And dancing fine he takes her hand, takes her hand, takes her hand!
Kissing brow he does not say, does not say, does not say!
When seek her kin she's gone away, gone away, gone away!
To Mistyholt behind the sky, behind the sky, behind the sky!
To sweetly dance and never die, never die, never die!
Raven's beauties laugh and sing, laugh and sing, laugh and sing!
But ne'er beyond the tower's ring, tower's ring, tower's ring!
Once the mists have grayed the day, grayed the day, grayed the day!
Little lass is borne away, borne away, borne away!
- A Child's Skipping Song from the Eastern Lands

The most notorious trait of the Raven King is his eye for beauty. Like his subjects, he is attracted to that sudden beauty which catches his fancy. He does not favor shiny objects, however, to line his nest with. Instead, youths and maidens catch his eye, those old enough to bear the beauty of their adulthood, but not old enough to be sullied by the march of years.

When the Raven King makes himself known in the world, it is most often to carry away some sweet-voiced lass or a bright-eyed youth. He never does this by violence, but rather by his supernatural allure and otherworldly beauty. He most often comes to those who experience some kind of trouble, anger or melancholy, and offers them an alternative to the dull and troublesome life they know.

What youth or maid in such a state of mind would not wish to be whisked away to a magical place with others like them, eternally-beautiful young men and women, in a place of wintery beauty, to an ever-lasting ball where winter-blooming white roses waft music as well as perfume, and the feasting tables are never emptied?

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By Mists Unseen

The wintery fogs that cut across the Tapestry in gouts of mystery are the servants of the Raven King. It is said that ravens were born from the sun shining too suddenly upon the mists of winter for the silhouettes and shadows within it to fade properly, and so they fled, taking flight as black-feathered birds. If this is true, it is likely that the Raven King himself was born in that moment.

The thorne-crones know that he wears the cold mists like a cloak, wrapping it about him to protect him from sight. If murders of crows herald his arrival, a lingering mist - cold like the touch of the grave - warns that he has just been somewhere. The mists part and he passes through them like a doorway leading to some other misty place. They also protect him from sight, and confound the senses of his foes.

The Blackthorne Stave

The tangled, twisted thorns of the blackthorne are the third of the Raven King's waysigns. In his hands, he bears the Blackthorne Stave, a baroquely-shaped staff or scepter. When he calls it to hand, a sprout of blackthorne bursts from the ground, no matter where he may be, and plunging his hand into it, he turns the twisted bundle into ash, leaving him holding the Stave, a mark of his regency. When he is done with it, he casts it neglegently aside, and the ground greedily claims it, swallowing it whole. In a week's time, a new tangle of growing blackthorne has begun to grow there.

It is for this reason that those old women who seek a fragment of the Raven King's power seek out such hallowed places where the blackthornes grow, for they know such sites have seen his power before. These so-called thorne-crones know the magic of a moonless winter night, the power that is in a rod of blackthorne and cast-aside feathers of raven, corby, crow and magpie. Many kingdoms outlaw the black arts of the thorne-crone, but anywhere an old woman is left on her own by dead or unloving kin, she might take up a blackthorne bodkin and burn an old crow feather to ash on a winter night when the mists lie heavy and cold, and mix a bit of her own blood with the ash and thorne-tattoo the old sigils of the Raven King upon her body somewhere. If she does not die from the poisons in the blackthorne within the next week, she will awake from the fevers to find an old Blackthorne Rook in her rafters, watching her closely to see whether she will be its new witch-master or its carrion meal.

The powers that the witches derive from blackthorne are the same that the Raven King wields: to strike and poison bodies of men, beast and spirit alike. To bring death, curses or dreamless sleep from the prick of its thorns, a trait best remembered by the legend of the Beauty Who Slept, whose wily parents worked unheard-of wards about their castle to keep the Raven King out, until he filled their palace with blackthornes that forced everyone to sleep, unaging, until the wards rotted away to nothing and he claimed the Beauty with a kiss.