JohnB's Games

A biography of Peter Gasgano - as told by Flower Nightsky, Advisor and Librarian to Sir Joromi Doxaro, Lord of Holbridges.

I first met Peter when he come to Berghof to visit the Nightsky Monastary, in the hope of seeing their famous books of prophesy. While he was refused access to the prophesies, he stayed with me for a few weeks, to learn what he could of the area and the order. He was interested many things, his current field of study was people and societies – so he collected stories about individuals, groups and societies. Eventually, he published a paper on the people and history of Berghof. In return for my help, he told me about his long life and experiences - which I duly wrote down and published as a short biography.

Peter, or as he is often known, Gasgano, is a small lithe man, not particularly strong, nor light on his feet – but gifted with love of knowledge and the ability to learn, with a knack of rooting out things that few others can find. He isn’t particularly gregarious, although he is personable and people feel comfortable in talking to him. Even when his notebook comes out and he starts writing things down.

His early years were spent on a farm, as a child of reasonably wealthy parents – who rented out their lands to tenant farmers. While not robust, and not interested in the physical work of farming, Peter turned his mind to the academic side of farming. Before long he had a good understanding of crop rotations, complementary planting, fertilizers and labour-saving systems. He also had interest in herbs and, particularly, fungi. Eventually, his father found him and apprenticeship with a sage called Reece, in Angasa.

He was soon sent to Galinia, to act as support for a group of adventurers who were clearing and exploring the land ready for recolonization. Gasgano’s role was to bolster agricultural production for the clans that had remained behind and to offer support in the form of herbal remedies to the party, as well as recording the wildlife he encountered. It went well, and he was eventually offered the role of Chief Herald for the newly reformed state. All went well until, after a trip to Holy Isle to meet the Raven King of Armes, he returned to the land of his birth expecting to reconnect with his family. Things did not go as planned, and he was caught up in a magical gate-trap which transported him to a different plane – and into the middle of a war between two competing religious factions.

Initially disappointed with their ‘catch’, his new colleagues realised Gasgano’s worth when they found a copy of the Book of the Dead, in the dungeons of a necromancer, and he was able to translate some of it. That included a spell that allowed him to open a gate to the Paths of the Dead. The Paths of the Dead surround a world and, if you know how, you can use them to travel rapidly from one point of the world to another. However, he was soon scrabbling for other, defensive, spells as he and his group fought their way through The Paths to their enemy’s headquarters for the decisive battle. His use of the book attracted the attention of Ankoo (who is a servant of Aroon , god of the underworld) who taught him how to use the book to travel between planes, and thus find a way home. However, that made it easier for Gasgano to translate some of the more complex parts of the text, and he worked out how he could absorb some of the powers that were held in the book.

Eventually he summoned a Guiding Light, which led him from The Paths to The Boatman and eventually onto the realms of the goddess Takri . Takri’s role in her Pantheon is to ensure that souls got to their proper destination, and in this case, seeing as Peter wasn’t dead, he managed to convince her to allow a Guiding Light to show him the way back to his original plane.

He studied with a cleric of The Ruby Sorceress who sold resurrection to adventurers, and was at the destruction of an Artefact created for a follower of the Four Horsemen – then studied the religious library that priest had kept.

By this time he was well versed in the Paths of the Dead. He could manipulate the borders with our world and move between those planes at ease. He could also control the unquiet spirits of the paths and, if it was required, undead on this plane as well. And he is the Master of Reincarnation. Should he ever be killed, he was able to hold his spirit together, and then reform a new body 24 hours later. He had become an immortal.

He must have sensed a kindred spirit in me, because he invited me to visit his home. He lives on a permanent demi-plane, somewhere on the Astral Plane. We travelled via the Path of the Dead, of course, and that alone was an experience worthy of note. The Paths are grey/green, with little or no other colour at all – it is a bit like looking at the word through a pair of heavily misted spectacles. They are full of the unquiet dead, souls who have not released their hold on the living world, or who do not have a coin to pay the ferryman. They clamour around trying to steal life essence, in the misguided belief that they can return to the living world, or trying to steal coins that they may pay their way forwards. Gasgano constructed a barrier around us and they parted to leave us a way through, although they were always close and moaning softly - although unable to reach us. They, and their moaning, accompanied us all the time we were on the Paths of the Dead.

Then there was a very short trip into the Astral Plane, before Gasgano opened a way into his own home. We entered into a small garden surrounded by fruit bushes and walls slung with climbing plants. A shallow stream flowed from a wall fountain to make a pond in the middle of the garden, which was surrounded by trees, many bearing nuts, which obscured the sky and left us in dappled shade. On one side a door leads into a small house. There is a central living area a main suite for Gasgano and smaller rooms for guests. While we needed to collect our own water and fruits from the garden, the house itself was kept clean and neat by an invisible servant. A flight of stairs led down …

Into the most comprehensive library I have ever seen. Chambers filled with books and scrolls of all sorts - there is one with general works, another dedicated to natural sciences such as agriculture, herbs and fungi. A third contains Gasgano’s own writings on the people and societies of our world, while another contains his books and research notes on death, the Paths of the Dead and other similar topics. It was most impressive.

A door from Gasgano's personal library, let us into the largest book repository I have seen, or even heard of - and there appeared to books on every subject that one could imagine. A couple of servants nodded politely to us, as they worked among the shelves, and we walked through to his office, where we took tea and ate the sweet confections, known as 'delight', from the southern lands. He even dealt with a couple of minor queries while I was there, sending one seeker after magical knowledge to someone called The Agent, and instructing one of the servants to fetch a tome on clockworks for a gnome who came calling.

We didn’t stop for long before Gasgano returned me to this mundane world and the tasks of daily life. However, that was a journey that I will never forget, and one that changed my outlook on life. I have always followed a path of physical and mental development and trained both my mind and body to deal with the rigours of life – and my upbringing at the Nightsky monastery gave me a healthy respect for books and reading. However, now I have taken the step of deliberately searching out new information and recording it as best I can, in the hope that one day I will be deemed suitable for an afterlife filled with books, knowledge and learning. Who knows, one might still be able to grow and develop, even after one has died.