In our first look at Sorcerers, we learned what makes a Sorcerer, and what kind of power they have. We took a look at the irreverent Unburdened through the lens of our narrator, Kai. Kai told you all about sacrifice, and how magic is part of a larger web of curses that take and take and take and only give back a little. Kai has likened their curse to an addiction, one that requires constant upkeep, and ever bigger sacrifice.
Today, we’re taking a look at the Reeves, who partake in the most ancient form of ritual sacrifice, that of living beings. They consider themselves a necessary part of nature’s natural course, revering life and death in equal measure. While they recognize their power comes from a curse, they look at that as a burden they bear proudly to keep a natural order to things.
The Reeves
The Reeves are a mixed family of relations both familial and transactional. Most members are descendants of several family groups who made a bond so long ago that its age is in contention. They honor the powerful goddess, Persephone, who spends half a year bringing life to the world, and half a year mercilessly ruling over the underworld and bringing death. Carmen Davis, our narrator, describes the way she feels her curse is a duty:
Can you feel the heat of the noonday sun on your upturned face? That glorious, lifegiving light so harsh and burning, yet so important to everything? Isn’t that the beauty of nature? The way it helps us grow and kills us in the same indifferent light of the sun. Can you imagine what it’s like to have that kind of responsibility? To be the sun, doling out life and death in equal measure just by your mere existence.
That kind of power deserves respect.
That kind of power yearns to be harnessed.
We aren’t the sun, but it inspires us. We aren’t nature, but we follow her laws. We have our own indifferent, unfeeling power source, so why shouldn’t we act like the sun, the storms, the wind, and the rain?
Think of it like tending a garden. You don’t just feed and water your plants, you pull weeds, clip back overgrowth, cultivate helpful insects, and destroy the bad ones. Under your exacting care, delicate flowers flourish and hearty plants remain in their place. It isn’t personal, it’s just the way things need to be. It’s the beauty of balance.
The Reeves are much more than Carmen makes them out to be here. They aren’t as impartial and indifferent as she alludes. They perform ritual animal sacrifice, often sacrificing a part or piece rather than a whole animal. Some suspect the Reeves happily engage in human sacrifice, although if you were to ask Carmen, she’d tell you that it is jealousy manifest as persecution for the peace they have struck with their curses.
The Reeves Inheritance pertains to their attunement to nature. They know how to navigate through most natural terrains with ease, and they can downgrade Complications from area effects that physically alter the Area they are in.
The Reeves teach their members Biomancy, to control plant life, Spiritualism to interact with spirits and ghosts, and Consuming Siphon to channel life from others into their curse.
Play a Reeve if you want to…
…Adjudicate the balance between life and death.
…Be a force of nature.
…Dance naked under the full moon covered in blood.
Carmen Davis
Carmen is our Reeves signature character in Curseborne. Carmen grew up knowing she was a Sorcerer. She comes from a long line of sorcerous families, and each of their children inherits the curse. Her family is so cursed, that even those who marry in, or get adopted eventually come down with a bad case of “cursed to be addicted to magic.” Carmen doesn’t see this as bad or weird, instead she sees it as a burden her family has accepted, and anyone who wants to be a part of it must also accept that burden. They wouldn’t marry in, or come to the family at all, if they didn’t want to sign up for a job in which they must keep a delicate natural balance.
Carmen might be delusional about what her curse is, and what it really means to be cursed, but she isn’t entirely wrong about people choosing to join the family doing so with a full knowledge of what that means. She didn’t have a choice in the matter, so she begrudges anyone who implies no one else had a choice either.
Carmen’s relationship to the natural order goes like this: Sorcerers have an unlimited power source that demands sacrifice, Reeves fuel that sacrifice by doing good in the world, balancing life and death, putting to rest the old, ushering in the new, and culling the overpopulated or weak. In doing so, the power source rewards them with unlimited use of the unlimited power. A neat little cycle, and one she’s happy to be a part of.
The Reeves have a dark reputation, and one they do very little to dissuade others from spreading. If they are so willing to sacrifice animals, and all that talk of keeping balance and culling, surely they turn to human or even accursed sacrifice at times?
Certainly that’s just speculation and rumor, nothing more.
