The Effie Logs--Effie the Gypsy Princess

Once upon a time, I ran a roleplaying game where a friend kept notes in character.

The notes of the character Effie started out quite dry, but as the game went along, they got funnier and funnier.

I promised years ago that I would share them online. I published the first two and then, somehow, never got back to it.

I think I am going to try to publish the Effie logs on Fridays. As I said above, they become funnier and funnier with time. There may be some spoilers for things in the Rachel Griffin background—not her direct story, but regarding minor secondary characters. I will try to make sure no major secret is revealed.

From my first try:

A tiny bit of background:

This takes place on the world of Merry-Go-Round, which is in Siderea, the greater universe in which Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts exists.

Shimmerbolt is the name of the main city. The Velvet Oyster is a popular tavern, run by a nymph. 

Effie Kori is a gypsy girl with power over fire. She insists that she was not there when she was born.

Blackhawk [played by John C. Wright] is another name for Vseslav Morozovich Volshevnic Romanov, an ex-pirate who would like to conquer something, but currently only controls four people: himself,

Asger Ichigo Kurohaku (known as Ichigo), an unemployed Einherjar who is also an exorcist.

Lady Trilby Moth, a young woman from under the sea who was telepathic and could conjure. However, at the beginning, she was only telepathic with rodents, and she could only conjure rodents.

—

Effie’s Log: Entry One

Hodos ano kato, "the way up and the way down"

If one stands at the bottom of a hole it a long way up but if one stands at the top it is a long way down.

Understanding that the thing and its opposite exist in all things in a state harmony is not always easy to see or grasp, especially when you are at the bottom of the hole looking up.

So starts my story when my world both ended and began.

The only family I had known had taken me to Shimmerbolt and set me out on my own. I was heartbroken, angry, lost, and confused.

I had just been attacked by a man for no reason and accused by his lady of using magics to entrance him to these actions. My family listened to me and believed me I am sure of it but the next day they said I had to go on my own.

To make things even more confusing I had a dream the night before where a mystical and wise armadillo named Ankle told me to seek out people I had met before and to save the world.

With little more than the clothing on my back, which if you know me is not much at all, I walked crying into the Velvet Oyster.

I was so upset that I did not notice at first that three of the people from my dream were there in the tavern.

Trilby, who I had not seen for a bit, saw me and tried to comfort me but I was too upset.

Mid-sob I was suddenly swept off my feet and found myself over the shoulder of Asger Ichigo Kurokakui, which did little for my crying. He carried not in the most dignified manner, tossed over his shoulder so much like a sack of potatoes or your prototypical damsel, I still managed to look good while doing so.

There I was bottoms up when the voice of another old acquaintance, Vseslav Morozovich, Volshevnic Romanov aka Vasil the Seer, Vasil the Son of Winter, Vasil the Falconer, aka the Black Hawk greeted me and said I was looking good.

Ichigo put me down, and Black Hawk tried to also comfort me by telling me how horrible life is and eventually offered me some Russian medicine, vodka. It was foul tasting, but I did feel a little better after a bit.

We learned the 4 of us had the same dream and Black Hawk, who spoke with such authority, said it was fate.

Realizing we had nothing, I started to cry again, but Black Hawk said we would go to the board outside and take a job to earn some money.

We decided that we would try to tackle a local villain by the name of Bad Horse, who turned out to be in fact a bad horse.

Black Hawk used his impressive powers to scry the location of this Bad Horse and called to him 40 black hawks, not related, to fan out and find this villain.

Black Hawk then told Trilby to use her amazing ability to read the minds of mice to help find him too.

After a bit following the mice and hawks, we traveled outside of town and spied a horse and 3 cowboys down in a chasm in a camp. Trilby said she was sure that was Bad Horse from the picture and as Black Hawk and I talked about if we could save this bad horse and what the plan was Ichigo in an amazing and scary display of skill and ferocity leaped down the 50 foot chasm. Ichigo, who clearly must like tea because he had been carrying a teapot all this time, tossed his teapot in the air, split Bad Horse in two from nose to belly, and caught the teapot on its way down without spilling a drop!

Black Hawk decided to stop figuring out a plan at that point and tried to get the girls to get behind a rock for protection as he sent his 40 Black Hawks after the cowboys who took off running.

Ichigo said there were ghost of murdered people at this camp and we agreed to return some of the items we found to the families. The remaining treasure we found was split 4 ways. Trilby got 2 nice dueling pistols and the other 3 of us got 100 Berries each. I also go a nice leather satchel which was good because my outfit was not practical at all for the life of adventuring.

While I didn’t need to lift a finger the level of carnage created by Ichigo combined with his ferocity somehow raised my spirits.

We then walked back to Shimmerbolt with Ichigo carrying / wearing the corpse of Bad Horse which was simultaneously horrifying and impressive. This attracted a rather large crowd as we took his corpse back to the port authority for payment.

Black Hawk gave an impressive speech and then told us all to leave but when I turned to leave he told me to stay.

The port authority paid us 25 Berries each for Bad Horse. We went from being broke to being well off really quickly.

We followed Ichigo as he went, covered in the gore of battle and smelling as bad as he looked, to some random houses that he said ghost told him to go to and gave some of the stuff to the people in the houses.

We then went on a shopping spree, which was a lot of fun, where I purchased some new clothes and a pair of old and unreliable boots of flying.

Black Hawk used some of his money to rent us a haunted house for a month and sent his birds out to bring us back some game. I volunteered to prepare a meal for my new found family as we settled into our new home.

Next Week: Gypsie Princess Effie: Episode Two–Robin Hood was a Gypsy