Breaking the Law: The Story of Namaja

Namaja was born Narsus of Aven, identical and elder[1] twin brother of Decus of Aven, and son and heir apparent of the Valdrean Emperor Narsus VI of Aven, on the first day of Aval in the Year 1975.

At the age of 12½ (exactly) both twins were to be initiated as Paladins of SARAN, having completed their Fighter and Clerical training at an early age. Decus prayed diligently throughout the preceding Caeriad, but inside Narsus something snapped. He had had enough of the strict regimentation of their lives, and he wandered off into the Sacred City of Valdran, never to be seen again by his family.

First Narsus called at Tandrys' house, near the Imperial Library. The Sage and Philosopher Tandrys was the greatest thinker Valdrea, and possibly the World, has ever produced. At one stage, he had been one of the twins' tutors. Tandrys sympathised with the young lad's attitude, admitting that he had long disapproved of the Lawful excesses of the present Imperial Family, and reassuring Narsus that rebellion against one's parents is a perfectly normal youthful phenomenon.[2]

From hints given by Tandrys, Narsus was able to contact the Secret Temple of DALA in Valdran, and there he met the Chaotic rebels of the New City. Dirty, in common clothes, and with his long hair cropped short, he was able to pose as a disaffected and cast out younger son of a gentleman. He gave his name as "Namaja". Turning his Clerical training to the worship of DALA, and learning the art of Thievery on the streets, he soon rose to prominence amongst the Chaotics.

Namaja never joined the Cult of the Ones[3], despite its popularity at the time amongst his associates. For he valued his individuality, and he perceived it would be lost if he were to become One with the Ones. What did interest him were those hints he heard of the art of ChaosMastery. Perhaps it subconsciously appealed to him as a substitute for the Paladinhood he had foregone? So it was that he embarked on a personal quest to find a ChaosMaster.

Clues gathered from Communes with DALA and Demon Summoning sessions led him to the Underworld. He reached it through the secret tunnel from Lake Zarak to Lake Karaz, using Water Breathing temporarily obtained from the Demon of Survival. From the Orcish Empire, where he emerged, he journeyed through the War Zone into the Land of Hulmo, where he succeeded in contacting Fyz; then reputedly the greatest living ChaosMaster.

Fyz proved willing to pass on his knowledge to an intelligent and able pupil, and Namaja learnt ChaosMastery from him as they interfered with the Orcish Empire's attempts to subdue Hulmo. In return for such assistance the rulers of Hulmo welcome and respect ChaosMasters as do no other states. But Namaja needed no inducements to combat imperialism, and he gained quite a reputation for his dedication.

When Namaja was confident in his new abilities he simply walked off one day, and kept going all the way back to Valdran. The return journey was easier, now that he was able to use Chaos to take shortcuts. He was 21 years old when he came home. He now began building up Chaotic resistance at the heart of the Valdrean Empire. His activities acted as a focus for Chaos and dissension, culminating in the Great Riot of 1997.

The current Emperor was his uncle, Decus XIX of Aven (who had been Director of the I.D.S. in the reign of Narsus VI): a man who made even a strict disciplinarian like Narsus VI look soft. Decus XIX withdrew the City Guard at first, letting the Riot build to a peak. Encouraged by their initial success, the Chaotic and rebel agitators came out into the open. The Emperor then sent in his Imperial Guard, directed by agents and informers of the I.D.S. Decisively ruthless attacks shattered the essentially unorganised and spontaneous rioters, driving the survivors into a panicked mass, who came together to fight their way out of the City. Agitators who attempted to melt away into the streets with the bystanders found their homes raided, and they too were forced to flee with their erstwhile comrades.

Namaja was waiting for them all at the agreed rallying point on the South Eastern shore of Lake Zarak. His supporters pleaded with him to use his powers of ChaosMastery to lead them back to victory. But he steadfastly refused to take any positive action or to assume any form of leadership; on the basis that for him to do so would be to compromise all their ideals, and would simply turn them into another Lawful faction. He tried instead to explain to them that the true route to victory lay in abandoning themselves completely to the Chaos they had generated within their movement. But such a concept was beyond these Valdreans. Finally Namaja was compelled, by the oblique dictates of his Art, to abandon them at the very moment that the Imperial Guard drew close; in one final desperate attempt to turn them all into ChaosMasters, by forcing them to rely on their own initiative rather than looking to him.

He walked away into the Lake, until he was submerged and gone to his would-be followers, to whose fate he paid no further attention. Instead, he ChaosWalked back to his mentor in the Underworld, in order to try and discover where he had gone wrong.

On the lake floor, choosing a direction at random, he turned right, eventually emerging into the Imperial Hunting Forest. As he was ChaosWalking, this took on aspects of a jungle, rather than a deciduous forest. It was almost as if he had emerged from the sea on the shores of the Great Jungle. And as he progressed, this is what it became, so that by the time he stopped to rest, he actually was in the Jungle. Here he wandered and explored for a while, partly in Reality and partly in Chaos, as he tried to work out where he had gone wrong.

On the lake floor, choosing a direction at random, he turned left, heading downriver at the bottom of the River Alma. Emerging in the docks before the first lock, he mingled with sailors and signed up on a ship heading downriver to Hapral. On reaching Hapral he signed up (under the name of "Narsi") on a ship heading out to Kuntax and Tehmor via Fort Venture. On the journey down the river and across the sea he tried to work out where he had gone wrong.

His eventual conclusion was that any attempt to build up Chaos in the centre of the Empire of Law was doomed to failure, as the Law must inevitably be stronger there. The way to oppose Valdrea with the power of Chaos was to build up his own realm of Chaos. This would counterbalance their excesses of Lawfulness, and give him a power base from which to move more directly against them. He would start from the Underworld, where he would be beyond Valdrean notice, and where it would be easier to attract citizens to a bright alternative to the grim nations of the Underworld. He would start from the Jungle, where he would be beyond Valdrean notice, and where there were plenty of potential recruits amongst the Chaotic tribes. He would start from the Desert, where he would be beyond Valdrean notice, and where he thought there were might be plenty of potential recruits amongst the Chaotic tribesmen or from amongst the Forty Factions of Tehmor. He would need to tread carefully, however, as he remained convinced that any attempt to control or direct Chaos was fundamentally flawed. The most he could do was to seek out that possibility which corresponded most nearly with his desired end, and to go with the flow of it. He realised, from his experience of ChaosWalking, that it was not necessary to go outside Anarea to find Chaos. It was part of the very fabric of the World, and it was exactly this Chaos he needed to work with if he were to redress the balance.

So Namaja left Fyz and most of the other ChaosMasters to continue what he now regarded as a futile struggle against the Lawful Orcish Empire. In the Year 1999, with a small group of followers, younger ChaosMasters, friends and others he had picked up along the way, he penetrated deeper into the Mountains of Cloud, out of which the ChaosMasters raided. He was seeking a pass through into his Promised Land, which could not be found in the "real" Underworld.

So Namaja started recruiting followers as he journeyed onward through the Jungle, attracting them by the force of his personality and the promise of a better land. In the Year 1999, with a small group of followers and others he had picked up along the way, he climbed out of the Jungle into the Eastern Mountains. He was seeking a pass through into his Promised Land, which could not be found in the "real" world.

Namaja was drawn to the highest mountain in the chain, Mount Ichil, which he climbed with a small party of his closest companions. It reminded him of Mount Griht, where the ChaosMasters of the Underworld had their Academy, and would give him a panoramic view of these Eastern lands.

Nearing the summit, he felt a Waypoint was close. Locating and opening a secret door, he led his party into Ichil Cave, the Sacred Heart of the Mountains. Studying the twelve Gateways marked by runes on the walls, he decided that this would be a suitable base from which to seek his realm of Chaos.

As Narsi’s ship sailed South from Fort Venture, following the coast of Mount Anar, he remembered from stories he had heard during his first spell as a Chaotic rebel in Valdran that it was somewhere in this area where the Star had fallen into the Ocean back in the Year 605, which had led to the Starweb. Opening his mind to this idea, he felt a Chaotic presence deep below the ship, in the Ocean or the Dungeons, which felt to him like the Star. On impulse (as always) Narsi dived overboard in search of it. He was at 243^o, opposite the Mafast Peninsula.

Partly swimming and partly ChaosWalking, he descended to the Ocean Depths, drawn by the Chaotic presence he could feel calling to him. Down and down he went, until at a depth of 200 miles he reached the seabed on the slope of Mount Anar. Here he found a crater 680 feet across, and 20 miles deep, in the centre of which shone the fabulous underwater city of Chaxachitlan, home of the Ixitxachitl, Giant Manta Rays, Chaotic Clerical philosophers and Magic-Users, who worshipped the Star itself (as an Aspect of TERRIK).

Namaja was soon able to rise to a position of power amongst the Ixitxachitl, despite being a human, because of the force of his personality and the power of his ChaosMastery. Discovering their mysteries, he realised that their hoard of fallen Star-stuff could be the key to unlock his realm of Chaos.

Many lands can be reached through Chaos, having various correspondences with the World as Lawfully mapped, and Namaja was a powerful ChaosMaster. He and his followers visited many of them, but he knew none was that which he sought. They moved further out, visiting the weirdnesses where reality breaks down on the edge of Chaos, but still he could not relate to anywhere in the way he sought. He could visualise his goal, but he could not find it, and it was wrong to attempt to create it.

Then it came to him. The place was in his mind. So he simply opened his mind to Chaos, they stepped in, and they were there. It was somewhere they could live, but was indescribable, as it was Chaos, and kept changing. It had no name: it was simply "There", or "Here" if the speaker were There.

The community grew and diversified. New members joined, and some departed. At first only Namaja could ChaosWalk Thither from outside, and Thence to outside. But on the first day of the Year 2000 others discovered the knack of doing so, and from then on Here really started to grow. Namaja could feel the Chaos expanding in his mind, as he opened it to more possibilities.

I roam the banks of Chaos in my mind. I'm looking for some troublesome KOROS Demons. I could really do without them. But the trouble with opening your mind to everything is that anyone can walk right in.

The trees here grow down from the clouds, and it rains up from the ground. It must get unpleasant in a thunderstorm.

It's all here: ideas, possibilities, impossibilities, and a few memories I picked up along the way. It's interesting to consider what each is, and whether it is, or was, or may become, true or false. Just what colour should the windows in dogs really be? But, ultimately, it's all irrelevant.

What are memories anyway? Is there, or was there ever, a past? You come across stories in your head. Did each really happen, or did you just dream it up? If you were to go back to it, would it change it, or just the memory?

Someone else remembers something too. Maybe you have told him that one before. Maybe you told him. What does it matter? Let me tell you another story.

Do we learn from such things? Only by thinking through all the possibilities can you know what may happen in any given situation. But there are many possibilities.

Have you been here before? It can never be exactly the same. Sometimes it is easier to rely on intuition. Herein lies ChaosMastery. Relax, and let it happen. Enjoy yourself a little.

The Chaos flowed into the mind of the ArchChaosMaster, and his power, his potential, increased. Namaja laughed, and unreality changed.

Maybe he would soon be ready to take on the Emperor again, but somehow it now seemed less important. If Here filled his mind, and was everything, then there was nothing else.

[1] Namaja is in fact the younger twin. The two were mixed up shortly after their birth.

[2] Tandrys was privately concerned at the implications for the Law / Chaos Balance within the Empire of what he was told by the young Narsus. His encouragement of the elder son's rebellion would, he hoped, serve to counteract this.

[3] The Cult of the Ones is the current manifestation of the Starweb in Valdrea (see Scenario "We Are The Ones").