Ruairí Marcach Stoirm (ˈɾˠuə.ɾʲiː ˈmaɾˠkəx ˈsˠt̪ˠoɾʲəmʲ)

Rí of Liria

"The stories ate my father so completely that not even the memory of him survived; even I only have scraps left. I don't know how many others have been lost in the same way, but I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop."

— Ruairí Marcach Stoirm, Rí of Liria

Ruairí Marcach Stoirm is the Rí of Liria. Liria is located on the island of Oileán Fiáin, and once was home to the Clarati sorceress Celestina. The experiments performed by Celestina during her reign drastically increased the power of the Egregoric Force on the island, and especially in the city of Aerendel, capital of Liria. There, the power of story is an overwhelming force that uses and discards people whenever the narrative demands it, wrenching each person's identity and personality to meet the demands of the tale.

Early Life

Ruairí Marcach Stoirm cannot say exactly how old he is. As Crown Prince of Liria, he spent his childhood being pulled into one story after another, with the narrative thrusting whatever princely role it needed upon his impressionable mind. Whenever he was free from a story, he would hide from people deep within the palace, hoping that if he could avoid interaction, he would also avoid becoming a part of the next narrative.

In those remote corners of the palace, he found books left over from when Celestina ruled. Many of those books were full of the tales that surrounded him, with hundreds of versions and variations, and with indices showing how they interconnected. Armed with this knowledge, Ruairí learned how to dance with the story, using what freedom he had within a role to guide the plot from one version to another. With a word here and a gesture there, he could divert a story from a murderous path to a more benign variant.

This became the quest of his childhood and adolescence. He would hide in the shadows of the palace, watching the stories play out, and step into the role of the Prince whenever he found a pivot point he could exploit. Always he sought to move the stories onto harmless paths, where nobody died. Sometimes he succeeded. Other times, he failed. And he was always in danger of being overwhelmed by the intrusive thoughts of the character he had been cast as. Still, he did his best to tame the stories, or at least control the damage they wrought.

The Rí of Liria

In 3970, Ruairí Marcach Stoirm's father was destroyed by the forces of story. It was more than death; after a lifetime of having his identity forcibly reshaped, his eidolon finally disintegrated and was dispersed. This had an effect similar to soul-death, in that he became a ghost in the mind of others. With no entity in the Dream to represent him, most people couldn't remember that he had ever existed. Even Ruairí can barely recall that his father existed, and his name was lost.

As he took the throne, Ruairí knew that his father's fate was not unique. Countless people in Liria could have suffered the same destruction, and nobody would be able to tell. More personally, this was the most likely death awaiting Ruairí himself. There would be no afterlife or return for those the narrative wore out.

Something had to change. Ruairí thought about how he had survived his childhood, dancing with the stories and shifting their plots to safer versions. He pondered the nature of story itself, and sought a way to render the wilderness of tales safe for those trapped within them. And he decided that the stories must be changed.

But as Rí, he had little time to enact any such plan. He could no longer hide from the stories as he did as a child, and dancing with the plots took up most of his days. He had the idea of how to change things, but not the means to do it. He needed help.

The Talespinners

He found it in the bard Ualter na Isigidh. Together they founded the Talespinners, a group of storytellers based out of the Three-Headed Tavern in Aerendel. Through them, Ruairí and Ualter conducted the Cogadh na Scéalaithe, or Storyteller's War. They created new versions of the stories plaguing Liria, stories that were kinder, safer, and longer, giving people more autonomy and dignity, and making it less likely that they would be suddenly gutted for a plot point. Then they carried those stories out into the world and told them, working to make them the dominant narratives, so that they would be the most likely to manifest in Liria itself.

They have waged the Storyteller's War for fifteen years now, and the impact can be seen in Aerendel. While the stories are still all around, they have softened and grown warm. Violence has been leached away, and light carried into the darker corners. The citizens still suffer from intrusive thoughts from the roles thrust on them, but they are less likely to be driven to murderous ends. The war is not over, but they are winning.

Rí Ruairí himself is still dancing with the stories. More than most, his position as the monarch makes him a part of the narrative, and it enmeshes him in tales every day. He has even said that the stories seem to be fighting back now, trying to assert the aspects of their narrative that he has worked to suppress. His personal life is a shifting tapestry of differing tales - from day to day, different people will be cast as his partner or children, as enemies and friends. Through it all, he has remained strong and held onto himself, and still hopes to avoid his father's fate.

Current Location

Aerendel

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Fir Fáinne

Year of Birth

3948 PC 37 Years old

Aligned Organization

Liria

Other Affiliations

• The Talespinners

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