Pralix's War

Pralix's War is a book on the early history of the Stonehenge Tribunal. Nominally it was written by Glyns verch Marc of Cad Gadu, but in reality the Quaesitor Iudicium and his assistant Torkel did much of the research and contributed greatly to its content.

Game Statistics

The book can be considered two separate tractatus bound into a single volume:

  Part 1: tractatus on Magic Lore, Quality 9
  Part 2: tractatus on Order of Hermes Lore, Quality 7

Contents

The actual narrative is arranged chronologically, but for players' convenience the key points are listed here by topic.

On Damhan-Alliadh

Damhan-Allaidh was originally from Brittany, not the British Isles as is commonly supposed. His magic involved writing runes either on his own face and arms, or on the target. With these he could curse his targets, bind them to his will, or steal their vitality. Usually the runes were drawn in ash or woad but unsubstantiated accounts say Damhan-Allaidh used human blood for the runes of his most powerful spells.

Among the spells Damhan-Alliadh is believed to have cast are:

• Animating the dead to serve as footsoldiers
• Conjuring and binding both demons and dark faeries
• Inflicting wounds and disease
• Curses of weakness, palsy, and stammering
• Shapechanging into a buzzard, wolf, or giant spider
• Altering his appearance, including accurately impersonating individuals

The details of his encounter with the Order are lost to history. It seems that he was offered a chance to join the Order of Hermes and refused. Apromor and three or four other early disciples of Flambeau confronted Damhan-Allaidh at Carnac but he had prepared defenses there. His demons and undead held off the magi long enough that he managed to escape. Magi, including Guernicus the Founder, searched for Damhan-Allaidh in vain. Later, of course, it was learned that Damhan-Allaidh had fled to Scotland, which was outside the Order of Hermes' territory at the time.

Accounts say Damhan-Allaidh was cunning and subtle. He was called "the Spider" for his ability to obtain Arcane Connections to his enemies and thereby coerce them with threats.

Pralix

A little-known fact is that both Houses Tytalus and Flambeau continued the search for Damhan-Allaidh after he escaped in Brittany. Apromor and his followers searched for him in the south, thinking the Spider might seek allies among the Muslim sorcerers of Andalusia. Guernicus himself thought that likely and assisted in the search intermittently over a decade.

Tytalus had lost his clout by the time Damhan-Allaidh became and enemy of the Order. He was afflicted with advanced-stage leprosy and obsessed with his beautiful young apprentice, Hariste. It fell to Pralix to continue the search for Damhan-Allaidh. (Although this book doesn't mention it, Pralix had other motives as well: she wanted to bring more wizards into the Order of Hermes and wanted to reach the British Isles before House Diedne.)

Pralix arrived in Northumbria in 814 with a strong company of men-at-arms and four magi: the warrior-magus Ignis Festi of House Flambeau, the Intellego master Hanjal of Tremere, and two junior magi of her own House. They soon encountered Damhan-Allaidh at Loch Oadh and suffered a crushing defeat: Pralix's army was routed by giants and one of the Tytalus magi was killed. When Damhan-Allaidh hunted down the fleeing survivors, he manged to slay Hanjal as well.

Damhan-Allaidh's Allies

Damhan-Allaidh had spent years in Scotland gathering allies and minions. He was a prodigal magician and apparently had plans to establish a British order of magicians to oppose the Order of Hermes. His methods were different than those of Bonisagus and Trianoma, though: instead of diplomacy, Damhan-Allaidh was building his rival Order on intimidation and deceit.

His allies and minions included:

• Giants up to sixty feet tall
• Trolls, the accursed remnants of fallen gruagachan
• Dark fae of the Highlands, including the sluagh and the Baobhan sith
• Saxon rune-wizards
• Imps and gargoyles of Unseelie or Infernal nature
• Giant infernal spiders
• Werewolves
• Pagan Highlanders and Northmen

The gruagachan, the Gaelic wizards of Scotland, apparently fought on both sides in the war. They had clan rivalries of their own and when some of them joined Damhan-Allaidh, others mustered to Pralix's banner.

Pralix's Allies

Pralix recruited local allies from throughout Britain, Wales, and Cornwall. Damhan-Allaidh had mostly locked up Scotland but Pralix managed to recruit a few key allies there as well.

• The most powerful of the gruagachan, a sorcerer known as Brude Deathless, and several of his followers. Pralix and Brude Deathless had a falling out and he abandoned her cause before the war was done. This faithlessness is the apparent reason the gruagachan never joined the Ordo Miscellanea or, later, the Order of Hermes.
• A magician from Damhan-Allaidh's tradition, known as Damhan-Duidas. Pralix never trusted him but his advice was indispensable in estimating Damhan-Allaidh's capabilities.
• A group of Welsh ward-makers known as the swynwyr, nicknamed by Latin magi "Columbae" (pigeons) for the white chalk marks they use to make their marks
• Folk witches, whose power of flight made them valuable scouts
• Welsh bards, wise in the ways of faerie magic
• Storm-witches
• The petty fortune-tellers and charm-makers known as "wise folk"

The War

There were a few pitched battles in Pralix's war, but after her initial, crushing defeat at Loch Oadh, Pralix sought to avoid open battle with Damhan-Allaidh's giants. The conflict was more of a feud than a war, each side roving the countryside trying to catch small parties of the enemy unawares. They sometimes raided one another's camps or mystical sites.