DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO FIND OUT FOIP ABOUT PIP
The Biography of Pip:
Background
Pip the Kender had a normal upbringing for her species, living in a kender city until the Wanderlust kicked in, and then leaving (with her brother, who unfortunately got eaten by swogs) and travelling the country for a decade or so before settling down in Grantabrugge and joining the Launderess' Guild to support herself. Relying on the Launderess' Guild for work did leave Pip in a slightly awkward situation in that she had also picked up some handy alchemical knowledge so Pip generally kept quiet about that ability for fear of alchemists wanting membership payments/kneecaps or launderesses wanting free potions as part of her existing obligations. Working shifts at the Guild and sharing a sleeping room on a timeshare basis with two other girls left her plenty of time hanging around nowhere in particular and so as a matter of inevitability she eventually ended up at the Wessex Arms - which after all, is technically owned by the Launderess' Guild, and has free drinks.
Marital
Pip quickly got to know the other kender drinking in the same place, including a smart kender dentist called Marital.
<redacted due to characters still in play>
The Trousers
Shortly before Marital died they had both purchased some interesting products from Gregory, a local kender businessman. Most noteably, Pip bought a pair of trousers which would swallow items placed into them with the words "Trousers, Trousers, take this ...." - whereupon the object would vanish - and could usually be summoned back by saying "Trousers, Trousers, give me back my ...." (although it did not always co-operate or return the specific item first time). It was unclear where the objects went in the meantime although trying to transport captured cultists for interrogation back in the city demonstrated that there was an unfortunate lack of breathable air inside the trousers. Consideration of the sort of reasons someone might create a pair of trousers with these properties, and that she was not their first owner, meant that Pip decided it was not a good idea to ask the trousers to give back 'everything ever put inside you' or similar.
City Politics
The subsequent capture of Gregory in a turf war with a mob of dwarves moved into the Grantabrugge docklands led to Pip taking an active part in rioting in the docks and the attempts to send the dwarves packing, which were largely successful overall in that the nasty dwarves in question went away (quite a number went away into the trousers of suffocation and ended up being generously dumped where Pip thought the bodies might come in useful). Sadly she was unable to prevent the unrelated death of the Sheriff (a launderess promoted to the role for her particular favour from the Lord Protector Bursarius), being confused why so many people saw her promotion as a problem - after all, she had worked hard to get it, finding a powerful person to favour you for services rendered is a usual method of advancement for Launderesses, and "well, yes, I'd be 'corrupt' too, except nobody will pay me!".
Anhrefnus (The Devourer, The Crack Beast)
At around this time, mysterious and dangerous cracks began to open in the surrounding area, apparently connected to an ancient god named the Devourer who had been imprisoned 999.9 years earlier and was thus about to Rise. An initial foray to investigate the cracks uncovered the text of a rite (which looked dangerous, hence Pip ripped it into several pieces, leading to the eventual loss of one quarter of it to the party) and the information that the Devourer was looking for his lost altar so that he could use it to rise, incarnate, and live upon the Prime spreading a new age of destruction and chaos, thus destroying the world. This seemed Bad, and so Pip joined the efforts to prevent the Devourer rising, including much personal consternation that the Mayor seemed to be carrying a piece of the missing altar stone around his neck and acting very shiftily about it, to the extent that he turned out to have been underhanded enough to swap his visible stone necklace for a fake (as she found out when confiscating it from his unconscious body :p) and hide the original.
Pip's new best friend, Cardgirl (whose name changed frequently between different birds - Joey/Apodidae) was also interested in the situation with the cracks, feeling sorry for the 'coals' who were 'burning in the fire' inside them (trapped souls) and attempting to transfer at least one out in a Lucanite rite (probably, it was always slightly hard to tell). Pip helped with these efforts, also feeling very sorry for the people trapped and sent mad by the influence of the Devourer.
Then the Devourer started to Rise. A very fancy temple with *extremely* shiny doors burst into being through the space previously occupied by the Temple of Justice. Many Justicars went mad, rather as if a similar thing had happened inside their awakened soul. Pip did not consider this a massive loss to society, given the trial over Marital's death and the fact that Justicars were co-incidentally due to try another good friend and possibly execute him the following Friday. Evidence started to come out that the Devourer was probably not a demon (being a demon would be Bad, the Balance via Taf and Yarrow said so) but a God (which would still be Bad if there were more than 13, but if it killed Justice and took its place, that might actually be OK with the Balance). Not upsetting the Balance was important, because Pip was interested in investigating Gods and maybe joining one if there was a nice one now that Kender could become awakened.
Cardgirl found a way to close the cracks (using the original rite). Pip accompanied her to close a small test crack, and afterwards, to the main temple to attempt to banish that. The inside of the Temple of Anhrefnus turned out to be very strange - it was still 1000 years in the past (although Cardgirl said this was only an illusion, and turned out to be right). Apparently Anhrefnus had been a very great and powerful god - one of the mightiest at the time and able to kill other gods. The people fighting him had been forced to keep their religion secret to do so - which seemed suspiciously like the situation in Wessex until a few years back, where the 'good' religions were public and 'evil' ones had to be performed in secret. A member of the party turned out to be an Anhrefnus cultist the entire time, and she turned into a huge pillar of fire which didnt seem to hurt her, which was very impressive. However, destruction of the world would still be Bad - after all, all Kender being the same Kender reincarnated through time and space, the future was still required for Pip(sometimes as other kender) to live in. It was all getting very confusing if Anhrefnus was bad or really shiny when Pip's automatic looting came across an interesting knife, last seen in the hand of a priest about to use it to sacrifice to Anhrefnus. Remembering that demons like blood, Pip rubbed some blood on it speculatively. It wanted some blood from someone else too. Pip provided that as a party member was conveniently on the ground (but then healed him). Then there was suddenly a battle going on between them and some sudden surprise Children of the Light on one side and Anhrefnus cultists on the other. Never having yet been on the same side as the Children let alone in a full battle, and not entirely sure she even wanted to fight the Anhrefnus cultists anymore, Pip panicked and lashed out with the knife, at which point everyone except her froze. Pip freaked out, threw the knife down and ran away, hiding in the Temple.
When Pip finally came out of hiding, everyone had gone and she couldn't find her way out. She occasionally ran into the illusions of cultists and crack-beasts, but found that they didn't hurt her if she unconditionally surrendered, and ended up having several illuminating conversations about Anhrefnus. It turns out that he *was* a mighty god, much better than Justice, and given that gods like having priests, actually destroying the world and everything on it would be rather counterproductive for him - although he *was* keen to spread chaos in all things and rise to rule. But everyone always mockingly said that kender are basically elementals of chaos anyway, right? Who'd be getting the last laugh, then? By the time that Pip actually heard Anhrefnus promising her favour if she joined him and followed his teachings she was already sold - he was clearly the most impressive god on the block, and this was going to be *her* chance to profit from having friends in high places.
What Anhrefnus needed most was the Stone of Happy Death, which had been his altar back in the past. The largest part was with the Witch Queen of Hibernia, and lots of people were already sorting out going to get that back so she could join in, and that was all very satisfactory. Pip even knew people who had a glove which pointed to the nearest fragment of the stone. That left the fragment that the Mayor had - but fortunately, mere hours after getting out of the Temple she came across the Mayor and drinkers of the Wessex Arms doing a mass rite to attempt to destroy that, a rite which failed to work and ended up with people charging the stone trying to damage it and being thrown back with the force of their own blows. Pip took this opportunity to grab the necklace and shove it into her supernatural trousers "because you are all hurting yourselves! stop it!" and despite being taken for questioning about doing this, ended up being released with the stone still in her possession. Extremely conveniently, the current custodian of the glove lent it to her for safekeeping during the week (as Pip was deemed less likely to meet Hibernian cultists in that time), and so Pip was able to go home, use the glove to check that the stone was real, and then go to the Temple of Anhrefnus and hand it over as a demonstration of loyalty. To cover up the fact that she wouldn't be able to produce it again, Pip regretfully cut up her beloved magic trousers "with the stone inside". To cover up having been to the temple, she gathered some samples of the vine covering it, which she had been eating during the week she was trapped, and pretended to have become mildly addicted to them.
Events moved quickly, and suddenly Anhrefnus was actually Rising and large groups of people were going out to stop him in various complicated ways. Cardgirl (called Cormorant) went blind and traded away her memories (though gained eye markings a lot like the crackbeasts had) and was going to kill herself by locking the door on Anhrefnus from the inside, trapping herself in a crack with him for another thousand years. This was bad! Ideally Anhrefnus and Cardgirl should survive and everyone else could get sealed in a crack if they really wanted. :( There were apparently four keys that needed to be collected, to unlock a door so that Anhrefnus could be symbolically defeated so that Cardgirl could lock him away again. The theology was complicated, but fortunately a cultist found Pip to give her the simplified-for-kender highlights - stop the keys being collected, because sacrifice of a symbolic final Justicar behind the locked door has to happen. Pip enthusiastically went out and stole a key, carrying it in her sadly no-longer-supernatural trousers, where it snagged and eventually prevented her continuing to hide it in places that had recently been searched. With only moments to go Taf found the key on Pip and the door was opened - despite a last ditch stalling attempt by Pip having a frustrated tantrum in front of it and imploring the party not to make Cardgirl die. Beyond, cultists and crackbeasts surrounding a sacrifice were quickly slaughtered, although in the confusion Pip did manage to cut down and execute the sacrificial victim herself in Anhrefnus' name as he tried to escape - though sadly not with an appropriate sacrificial dagger, so nothing came of it. Anhrefnus Rose very briefly, walked upon the Prime in clouds of smoke, and then was bound again, having eaten Cardgirl and been defeated in combat.
Phoenix
When Pip went to loot Cardgirls' room (being as she was now dead and thus not using any of the alchemical equipment Pip had previously seen lying around in there), she found a note addressed to her. The note said that Cardgirl might not be dead so much as now able to teach Anhrefnus that "fire can burn, but fire can also warm in a hearth." from the inside. The gist of the letter as Pip understood it was that when people use their inner fire to burn each other, they get so scared of getting burned that everyone ends up cold and lonely - rather than everyone being friends and warming each other.
<redacted for still being current>