Wyld – Casting Brief

The Tao

Tradition, Rite, Spirituality

• The Gillieabad (Gill-E-A-Bad): Ancient Spirits who live in every moment of every time and of every space.
• Ancient Lore tells us that they created the world first for the purpose of guardianship and a forgotten duty.
• It also tells us that they created humanity as soldiers to protect the world against a danger that would rise one day to overcome all that they had made.
• In the first days they were called the people of the Earth Tribes and lived in the North in the lands of the Chosen.
• We lived in harmony with the Gillieabad, we gave them our songs and our joy, celebrating in the sacred places, and making love and life beneath the boughs of their trees.
• In return they granted us knowledge of where to plant and when to harvest, taught us skills and made us self sufficient.
• When the Shadow fell across the land of the Chosen, those that carried hate and greed in their hearts no longer wanted to be taught or to learn.
• Many gave their blood to the Gillieabad, flesh and fluid that the Gillieabad had given life returned to them corrupted by the weakness of humanity.
• The land of the chosen fell and humanity fled the coming of the Comet that they had called down from the heavens, travelling in all directions to settle in new lands.
• When the comet came, it brought magics that had been cast from the world. This caused a perversion of the magic that flowed through the world, lifeblood to the Gillieabad.
• In what is now the Six Duchies the Gillieabad became known as the Spirits and the ways of their harmony were forgotten to all, save a few.
• As time passed they grew to be stuff of story and tale until the Torakaylin foe made a Deity called Kalarm to be worshipped by those that had affinity with the Wyld.
• In this way a process called fettering began. The Gillieabad were given names and roles which bound and defined them to certain places and certain tasks.
• No longer were they free and capable of their great works, they became disconnected from the world they had created.
• The world began to suffer and die and as the Gillieabad suffered so it weakened the people of the world. The magic of the world and their guardianship began to diminish.
• This escalated over centuries, but there were those that remembered the old ways and practiced them in secret Groves and Altars.
• As the Ritualists, and the Tao that they followed, grew in strength they demolished the powerbases of the false God Kalarm and restored many places to their right and natural state.
• Now Kalarm is gone but the Wyld is a ruined place where those that follow the path of the Tao are forced to name the Gillieabad and ask them for the power that they have grown to represent.
• Each day is a struggle to protect what is left of the beauty that was created by the Gillieabad as the Ritualists of the Tao wrestle to maintain what they have and seek a way to Unfetter their creators to restore what has been lost.

What The Wyld is:

• An ancient form of magic that calls on the glory and beauty of the world. It protects us and what has been forgotten, bastardised and turned into a twisted reflection of itself.
• A Magic that is understood in other places but that shares its connections to the world with the Gillieabad who are a dwindling resource the world needs to thrive.
• Driven by the Spirit which is the deeply rooted connection between a person and the world around them.
• Powerful in its own right when being called on by an individual but one that can be enhanced and boosted through the gathering of many Ritualists.
• Sacrificial Magic: The fettered Gillieabad require payment, which many consider a feeding, to provide their magic. Those that renege on these gifts suffer.
• Ritualistic: The forms of Magic that can be called on utilise a fettered Gillieabad which has been trained to respond to certain callings. These are the core of most of the rituals used to call on that Gillieabad power.
• Insular: Whilst the Tao of the Wyld sits within the boundaries of the Royal Basin it serves those communities that pay respect and sacrifice to its ways and rites. Although it follows the Basins rules in generic terms it has its own stringent code.

What The Wyld isn’t:

• Dancing around the woods: The Wyld extends into every aspect of the Basin’s life, including the heart of Cities where the Gillieabad inhabit ancient statues and cause buildings to walk!
• Blood Sacrifice: This can be done, but the Gillieabad accept songs, dancing, a well worked tool, and many other things before you need to chop off a limb.
• Everyone wearing green: There are, again, city ritualists and not everyone lives in a bag under a tree in the middle of a cave under a lake.

Choosing The Wyld in the Six Duchies:

• At their core, the Tao of the Six Duchies identify as one of the four following “types” of Wyldling.
• Ulmagarn – A Politician operating as a leader of the Tao. They act as a go-between for that aspect of the world and the Royal Basin with some understanding of Ritual.
• Melkarr – A keeper of the lore and legends of the peoples of the Basanic Tao and a powerful Ritualist.
• Elestrom – A lawmaker. Judge, jury, and executioner of the law of the Tao operating alongside Basanic lawmakers. They are skilled ritualists in their field.
• Vormearn – A hunter, warrior and doctor/veterinarian all rolled into one. These hard people are blessed with a Baserak spirit and serve all aspects of Taofic life.

Casting Brief for the Wyld:

• The Gillieabad that are called on for rituals can be seen as individual building blocks for the rites that are called on.
• The smallest of the named Gillieabad and “weakest” of them are called Myrrigun (Mere Ree Gun) who each serve an Abberundy (Ab Bear Un Dee) who in turn serve what is called a True Gillieabad.
• When a ritual is called into being, Spirits are created from the essence of the Myrrigun being called on to give power and direction.
• The smallest of these is called a Felakiq (Fell a Key Key) and the larger is called a Galafeli (Gal A Fail E)
• When a ritualist calls on any Myrrigun, Abberundy or Gillieabad, it is the Felakiq and the Galafeli who will be called from the Spirit World to serve the Ritualist.
• A ritual is an observation of traditions that have been laid down throughout the years, although many accept that some of these traditions are part of the fettering, whilst other parts are of the old ways.
• At each step a gift is first offered to the Felakiq, then the Galafeli and so forth with each gift appropriate to their station.
• The rite itself calls to the benefactor and then to the spirits that serve it to achieve the task at hand.
• Casting is through ritual and rite and calling on the spirits
• Words should be big, slow and powerful – you are looking at 2 words per second.
• Accoutrements appropriate to the performing of the rite should be used. 
• Ritualists can cast their mags around a ritual point and then enter combat with them prepped to go although they would expire at the end of the combat.
• Ritualising through combat needs to be careful and succinct if unprepared.

What are the Tao Goals?

• The Tao in the Royal Basin is a badly damaged affair and the main goal of the Wyld Users is to restore the Gillieabad here and make the land whole again.
• Politically, they seek to establish a presence, proper, within the royal Basin so that they can forge embassies with nations stronger with the Tao.
• From there the concept of a Taofically unified Daer Akmir dedicated to the unfettering of the Gillieabad is a strong ideal.
• To protect the interests of those members of the Tao that are represented in the Royal Basin.

What are the Tao Attitudes? 

• The Tao has been in existence since the very beginning of humanity and has learned a great deal of lessons regarding kindness and patience.
• A determination to repair the Tao’s magic and recast ideals in people’s minds regarding its role in the world.
• Society is deeply important, people are the life of the Tao and those societies should be ruled in fairness and equality.
• Development of a direct role for the Tao in Non Taoist societies.

What is the Aberration of The Wyld?

• Before all things there was the Gillieabad and when they gave mystical power to the world it was not called Wyld it was called Magic.
• Their history has been one of corruption to weaken their grasp on the world by many who would exploit its power.
• Whether this is to undo the forgotten duty that they are bound by or just to strengthen their own hold over the power that Vaklam brings the result is the same: Abominations.
• There are many terrifying abominations that date back to those first days of blood sacrifice which dominate the blood pits of old but they are overshadowed by the thousands that have sprung up through purposeful corruption or misworship down through the millenia.
• In most cases these creatures are Gillieabad, trapped in sacred places and worshipped in vile ways, called upon to grant despicable purpose.
• Eventually they grow beyond the means for their creators to control and consume them.
• In other cases they are ritualists who have connected too strongly with the world of the Gillieabad and been consumed by the power, becoming something darker and more sinister.
• In all ways when a ritualist calls out to the Wyld there is a chance that they will be answered by such an abomination and that their power will come from such a source.
• If a ritualist accepts, willingly or otherwise, power from an abomination then a link is forged that may never be broken and the path that they may wish to follow could be lost to them forever.

Last updated byHolly Goodall