SourceMaterial-The Five Rivers

This is Avlis Source Material ⚠️Use of this material has NOT been authorized on the NWN Avlis Servers.⚠️ To use any of this material IC on NWN Avlis Servers, you must request approval of this material from the Avlis Team. Send a PM to the Dungeon Masters group on the Avlis forums to begin that approval process. To learn more about what Avlis Source Material is, please click here. You may use this material for non-server-related Avlis events, such as D&D/PnP.		The Five Rivers The Five Rivers is a monastic order of pathomancers originating from the onishin monk Ajaga of Khanjar Kuro, the original pioneer of Light Pathomancy. The name honors the five elements of Khanjar Kuro (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) and the quintuplet children of Lyelia and Taiso, also known to mythology as His Most Splendid Majesty the Platinum Dragon. In similar fashion to other organizations that govern the use of magic, The Five Rivers divides itself into five orders corresponding to these elements, and each order is in turn divided into light, silver, and shadow polarities corresponding to the three different flavors of pathomancy. As the official umbrella organization of pathomancers, The Five Rivers explores the art and guides the growth of its practitioners. Part of its responsibility also includes tracking the origin and flow of The Transient River, which is known to shift from time to time between the Ethereal, Astral, and Shadow planes. When this happens, it can temporarily hamper pathomancer spellcasting and requires group meditation and contemplation to support the planar exploration necessary to allow a team of planewalkers to seek out the new origin and perform a ritual at that location. Since the Transitive River is closely tied to emotional energy, and there is no ultimate power or deity in control of that power, the river’s origin can shift more often compared to some of the other centers of power. It is not unheard of for it to happen several times within a century, and only the most power pathomancers are selected to travel on the quest to find the new source. History The Five Rivers originated from the onishin monk known simply by one name, “Ajaga”. For most of her life she was a hermit content to contemplate the mysteries of her spirt and demon hybrid origins and the world’s inner conflicts until one day in 1360 A.O.D. she was approached by a good friend named Kodhi Kharma, who was excited about a new revelation. In those days, the population of Khanjar Kuro was under attack by tainted minions of The Dark Avatar, who unleashed a new form of magic called pathomancy. For nearly a century, it was not going well for the Clans of Light, and it seemed only a matter of time before the Clans of Darkness would prevail through pathomancy. Kodhi told how he found something he called the Transitive River which flowed through the transitive planes and acted as the source of power for the pathomancers of The Dark Avatar. He further believed there could be a new way to tap into it as to counteract the Clans of Darkness and turn the tide of the war. Ajaga listened to his stories and watched his demonstrations with great fascination. The two agreed to explore this new phenomenon together, with Kodhi studying it to augment his fighting skills and Ajaga to learn how to draw magic for her spells. The early years of exploration were not fruitful, but a breakthrough came one day when Ajaga and Kodhi spied a dark pathomancer drawing on energy from the Plane of Shadow to cast a spell. The caster looked around on a nearby wall for a shadow and then proceeded to pull the shadow off the wall and over his head, using a special ability. This imbued the caster with some properties of the shadow realm and gave him the ability to direct the energies of the Transient River. Ajaga realized that an ethereal equivalent to a shadow would be effective at delivering the same sort of power but from a different transitive plane, and using meditation she learned how to pull light over herself in the same manner to achieve access to the near Ethereal Plane. This discovery set her into high gear and she began to train heavily. Ajaga replicated the shadow-based pathomancy abilities and created an entirely equivalent art from the ethereal version. As Kodhi and Ajaga’s power grew, they both decided it was time to teach it to others, and in 1347 A.O.D. they founded a school on one of the smaller mountains near the fortress of Kazani'e, Mount Funsui. Ajaga built a fortified monastery there called Tengokukai where she based her new school called “The Five Rivers Academy” in honor of the Transient River, the five roads leading out of Kazani’e, the five quintuplets of Lyelia and Taiso, and the five elements denoting the major clans of Khanjar Kuro. The founding of The Five Rivers Academy began a new turnaround in the war against The Clans of Darkness. Ajaga took on hundreds of new students and immediately set them out to aid their nobles in the war, causing many of them to rise to respected official ranks within their own clans. The five senior students of Ajaga went on to found sub-orders in the territories of the five clans. Each built a fortress as a base of operations for the fledgling orders: D’Chyokai (Order of The Wooden Song), Khazai Khan (Order of The Fiery Winds), Udoshoshiki (Order of The Stalwart Rock), Kinzokushudoin (Order of The Metallic Edge), Mizugakuin (Order of The Cleansing Rains). Over the course of the next millennium, The Five Rivers grew to incorporate both the pathomancers of shadow and light, allowing membership from both the Clans of Light and Darkness. Until roughly the year 2250 A.O.D, there was no knowledge of silver pathomancy. However, through some contacts made with the main continent of Negaria to the north, and with the help of several bands of adventurers both on the surface and in the Underdark, some new discoveries pointed the way to accessing the Transitive River through the Astral plane. Each order of The Five Rivers worked to nurture this new piece of the art and incorporate it throughout the organization, which had political implications both in Negaria and on the island of Khanjar Kuro.