Explorer of Origins

EXPLORER OF ORIGINS When a beast dies in Cernunnos' Domain, it leaves behind a Vestige — the remnant of a slain beast's soul that can give passive improvements, be sacrificed for permanent capability, or even combined through Grafting ritual into something that didn't exist before. The [Wolpertinger]. The [Twrch Trwyth]. The [Caer Arianrhod]. The names come from old stories. The Domain always had a word for what these combinations produce. It was here before the taxonomy. Keannan Aldenmoor is the youngest child of a knight's household — invisible in a family whose legacy was complete before he arrived, carrying Traits nobody expected. He researches endlessly, beast compatibility charts, Vestige combination theory, field medicine learned backwards from poison indexes. By twelve he's filled seven notebooks containing all these lessons learned. His family has arranged an apprenticeship and built a plan for who he'll become. They're working from a viewpoint that can't see who he truly is. When Keannan steps through the Menhir at sixteen with sixty-three pages of preparation and a secret he's been holding since the moment he first saw his Manifest and the extra capacity he has compared to others — his Form emerges as a traveller's pack and a marking tool, and he is not disappointed. He will work through all of Cernunnos' Domain methodically, run headlong into an underground economy that notices him faster than he intended, travel south with a coastal operative who turns out to be genuinely useful, encounter people from a very different world who don't fit any column in his notebooks, and keep his eyes on the mountains that have been in the background of every view since he was old enough to see them. Follow his journey. Join him on his path seeking the origin of the world's mysteries. First person present tense. Progression fantasy. Celtic and northern mythology woven through a world built for it. Patient protagonist. Long game.