How my part in this adventure begins....

A publican’s work is never done. I was just starting in on the large stack of filthy beer glasses from last night’s trade, when I heard it.

My name.

My real name.

I was instantly taken back, back across two continents and two great oceans, to my island homeland. To Rama Nui, the “Great Torch.” The isolated, lovely world where I was born and raised, where I learned the ways and ideals of a people who lived with and loved the waters, where I was initiated into my Clan, the Clan of Searfarers and Storytellers. I was taken back in that moment to when our Elders called out my name, choosing me to go with six young fellow members of my Clan. We were being called on to venture forth and to investigate, to learn the ways of the newcomers--the people in the great canoes that sailed from over the horizon. They were the “Strangers,” the ones who would soon find our home island, and perhaps change it forever, change it in ways that the Gods themselves could neither predict nor stop.

Then, I returned to the present. To my pub, to the world of the Strangers whom I had come to dwell among--the only survivor of that band of seven young island seafarers, rescued by a Yankee whaling ship many years ago, and now, living quietly among these people who worshipped a mighty god called Science..

But the voice that had spoken my name--my real name--was not that of a stranger. It was a voice I knew well. I turned and stood impassively, waiting.

“Come then and put aside your dirty beer mugs. There is work to be done, and the Great Waters call us.”

I nodded and gently sat the glass and the soapy rag I held into the dry sink. As we went out the Anvil’s door, I briefly thought about locking it behind me, but then decided to forego that simple act.

I had a feeling that I would not be back.

My Background: The Gods set us to a path...

name: Ihaka Tangaroa (aka Aldo)
role: former wanderer and mariner, possibly a little mad, (certainly depressed a lot), pub owner and apparently an expert guide for this adventure

My Backstory:

The Strangers among whom I have dwelt these years know me as Aldo. Only one among them, the Guardian of Knowledge, my friend Jayjay the Librarian, only he knows the name I was given at my birth.

I was Ihaka Tangaroa.

Ihaka, “he who laughs.” Yet I have little to laugh over now, save small and silly things that amuse but briefly.

Tangaroa. The Sea God of my people. It is a part of my name because I belonged to the clan that honored the Sea God. How could we do otherwise? We were his children and our lives and livelihoods depended upon understanding the ways of his home, the Great Waters.

I was born upon the island of Rama Nui, the “Great Torch,” so-called because at the center of our island home stood the great mountain with a heart of fire. When the mountain would put forth its flames and rivers of fire rock, our seafarers could see it from a distance, and particularly at night it looked to them like a huge torch, guiding them home.

Our people are distant cousins of the noble Maori. We share many things in common with our cousins, such as many of our words and our ways, including the Ta Moko, what the Strangers call tattoos. Often I am asked by a Stranger if I too am Maori, mostly because of my Ta Moko, the markings on my face that tell the world who I am and the clan to which I belong. No, I am not of the Maori, but sometimes I no longer bother to explain. I smile and nod. For I am tired of the talk of the Strangers.

Once my people were possessed of great curiosity about the Strangers. When I was young, just past the threshold of manhood, my people knew that soon the Strangers would come to our island in their great canoes, some of which sailed upon the Waters and others of which sailed through the air up in the Sky. We knew something of their ways, for our people had found Strangers before, in ones and twos. These Strangers had gone "exploring," but by accident or ill fortune their great canoes had sunk into the Waters or fallen from the Sky. Some of these survivors had been found by us, and we cared for them and tried to learn from them. But we never could allow them to return to their homes. For one of the things we learned was that if many Strangers knew of a place like Rama Nui, they would descend upon it like the flies that flock to the corpse of a dead pig. The castaway strangers made us aware that their people worshiped a powerful god whom they called Science. And this Chief of their gods had a son: Technology. These mighty gods gave the Strangers their great canoes that could traverse the Waters without sails or paddles, and the sky canoes that could carry them above the clouds. Our Elders could see that when the Strangers came in numbers to explore among us, and perhaps even to stay...then the world we knew would change forever. Only the mighty reef and the mists that hid our island kept them away for a while. But we knew someday they would come. Before that happened, our Elders were determined to prepare as the wise man does, by gathering knowledge.

They selected seven of the young men of my clan -- the Seafarers and Storytellers -- to embark on a great sea-going raft and to go explore as the Strangers do. We would find them and study them, and learn more about their ways and their gods. We were of the seafarers, so it was thought we were best suited for the journey over the Great Waters, which is after all, the home of our God, Tangaroa. And as storytellers, we were suited for observing and listening, then remembering and recounting in great detail what we saw, what we found.

But we were not up to the task. We sailed several weeks in great contentment and excitement, proud to be the emissaries of our people among the Strangers. Then we were caught in a terrible storm and some of my companions were lost, washed into the depths of the Great Waters. Blown off course, we came to an unknown place. It was strange -- but it was not a place of the Strangers. In fact, I am sure that the Wise Men and Elders among the Strangers did not know of it, even with their massive knowledge and the help of their great god Science.

They do not know nearly as much as they think they do. Nor is their god Science as powerful as they wish to believe.

And this was one of those places that was not known to the Strangers -- except for an unfortunate few. It was a place of mysteries. I think it probably is not a place that the Gods smile upon. We were not welcome, but we were not able to leave. All but two of us perished there. Myself and the last of my companions, my friend Aata, “the Rock” -- he who was like more of a brother to me than my own brothers -- we stole a canoe and set out to escape that place.

We tried to catch the wind and prayed for the help of Tangaroa, and he did take us far from that place where the Gods did not smile. But we had little food. We had nothing to drink but the rain or the blood of fish we caught. My friend who was like my brother died and I gave him back to Tangaroa. I thought that soon, I too would die, floating, lost and alone on the Great Waters, without anyone to say the Words over my body.

Instead I was found. A great sailing canoe of the Strangers -- what they call a "whaling ship" -- found me and took me on board. They were Strangers, but they were good men. Their chief -- the “captain” -- was a man named Beatty who came from a land called Caledon, and his officers were “Yankees” from a place known as New London.

Their ship was a fascination to me, in part because I could tell that many crafts and skills, and much knowledge had gone into making it and sailing it. But what intrigued me even more was that the crew were men from many places and of many colors. There were men with very dark skin whose ancestors had lived on a far off continent known as Africa. Some were men with lighter skins who had come from lands called Italia and Portugal. Other men were known as “Indians” and their hair was long and black, and their faces a reddish brown. They lived in the same land as the Yankees, near to New London, though their ancestors and those of the Yankees had fought each other for it. And there were even some men who came from the ocean islands, not too far from where I had been born. They spoke similar tongues to my own, so I could converse with the rest of the crew through them, and I began to learn the languages of the Strangers.

Those men were all different in look and language, but they were all seafarers, and as such, they were already of my Clan. They took care of me and made me well again. The island men and the Indians helped me mourn for my lost companions. The crew of this ship, the Yankee whaling ship Ulysses, taught me how to be one of them -- to be a whaler -- for they were in the midst of a long voyage and would not call at port for long months. The Yankee men steered the small whaleboats with skill like no other men I had ever known. The men of Italia and Portugal worked at all the hardest tasks with a will such as amazed me, singing songs of their homelands as they toiled. The island men and the Indians were the best at throwing the “harpoon,” a long lance that was used to kill the whale-fish. And I willingly learned to throw the harpoon with a killer’s eye, to row and sail in the whaleboats, to take a part in cutting up the whale and cooking down its flesh and fat for the oil that the Strangers prized.

One of the crewmen, a man from the land called Italia, said I made him think of his uncle Aldo. He said I smiled and laughed as his uncle did, and handled a boat as he did, and so he took to calling me Aldo. The rest of the crew came to do likewise. And from that time on, I have been mostly known among the Strangers by that name.

The Captain, the man from Caledon, and I became very close. He worked to improve my skill with his language even more, and I made steady progress under his tutelage. He eventually took it into his head that I should learn to understand the words on paper that his people used to pass their stories on to one another. And he liked my stories, and he liked how I could make him laugh. Captain Beatty was kind and honest and a good seafarer. Just as Aata had been my friend who was more like a brother, this Captain became my chief who was more like a father. In time, Rama Nui and the life of Ihaka Tangaroa, seemed as though it had never existed.

Months turned into years, and I stayed with the seafarers of the Ulysses as I was good at the killing of the whale-fish, and I liked the companionship of these men. I missed my own people less for being with them -- I do not regret staying on that ship. I thank Tangaroa that he set me in the path of Captain Beatty and his crew of whale hunting seafarers so that they could preserve me for whatever my task might still be.

Ah, but that was the hard part: my task. I was not sure how to continue the task to which I had been set by the Elders of Rama Nui. The Elders had not said how long to stay among the Strangers and study them. They seemed think that we would somehow know when it was time to return. So when the time came to leave the Ulysses, I let the Gods lead me where they might.

I worked in a factory -- a great workshop, where the noise and heat would have pleased the Fire God himself. It was in the land of the Yankees, and there they made weapons, the guns that the Strangers used to fight their wars and conquer lands. After a while the Great Waters called to me once more, and I went back to seafaring. At some point my travels ended again, and I tended bar in a place called New Toulouse. That bar was a real “rathole” I am told, but I found it a good place to listen and observe. Then I met one of the Strangers who was an explorer, a “Scientist.” This man told me that he might know the way to a hidden place, that as he described it to me, I was sure must be Rama Nui. I thought this might be the chance I was awaiting, the chance to return to the island of my birth. The scientist, “Herr Docktor” Kamm, took me on as part of an expedition to that part of the world. But when we got to the edge of the great reef, to the place where there should have been the mists, and then the Great Torch itself...there was nothing.

Only Tangaroa’s great rolling Waters.

Rama Nui was gone. I do not know if the Gods found some new way to hide it. I think perhaps not. Perhaps the mountain with the heart of fire burst and sank as such mountains sometimes do. Perhaps a great wave came....

I do not know. All I know is that I am most likely the last of my people. I cannot describe to you the hole which that knowledge left in my heart. I simply do not have the words to do so.

But the Scientist, who was one of the Strangers who call themselves Europans, could tell I felt lost, and he gave me new tasks to do. Some of these tasks were related to his service to his God, for he was an acolyte of that mighty deity, Science. Some of the other tasks were of a more shadowy nature, for this expedition had been organized not only to serve Science, but also to carry out some work on behalf of the Europan intelligence office. Either way, it mattered little to me. In giving me any task of any kind, Herr Doktor helped me think of something besides what had been taken from me. Eventually I went to work with the Europans, as a constable on a group of islands that they took on as a protectorate. I worked to help make things be peaceful between the native people of those islands and the Strangers, as I had once hoped I could do for my own people.

Again I was proud of my work, in service both to the Chief of the Europans -- their "Baron" -- and to the people on his island protectorate, and eventually I became a Vize Feldwebel of the island constabulary. I also carried out, now and then, some various small tasks on behalf of the Baron's intelligence service. But they were of no great significance and we need not discuss them here.



After some years, I received word that my old captain, the master of the Ulysses, the man who had saved me from a lonely death upon the Great Waters, had gone to meet his ancestors. And he had no children, so somehow, he had decided to leave me what he owned in this world. It was a pub. This pub was called the “Falling Anvil,” and was in a village called Tamrannoch in his homeland of Caledon. And that was how I came to be a publican.

And it was there I met the Librarian, the Guardian of Knowledge, the Keeper of Secrets.

It happened one day as I was strolling around the village. I noticed a new building, with sounds of hard work echoing from within. It was the Librarian, preparing his first temple to preserve and keep the stories. I was drawn in by something...I don't know what. But within I found a place of magic and power, where stories were not simply kept, but were shared across time and space in ways that I could never have imagined possible. To my surprise, I found that the Storyteller who dwelt there had some use for my own small powers, as well. More importantly, he became my friend. And now, the Librarian, my friend Jayjay, has some task for me.

The Gods set us to a path, and we follow...