Story
A cold mist drifted across the deck of the Blue Marlin as night deepened. Lanterns swayed gently, their light swallowed by the fog rolling down from the cliffs. Scarnax stood at the rail, studying the shoreline, uneasy without knowing why. Shaedra watched from the aftcastle, brow tight, her hunter’s instincts prickling. Amaxia muttered that she did not like how quiet the world felt.
A faint splash touched the silence.
Nasheem spun toward it. "Someone is approaching."
A slender figure stepped out of the fog, one foot meeting the deck without a sound. Dark blue silk robes clung to her in the damp air, and a long veil hid part of her face. She looked thin, exhausted, as if she had walked through storms that refused to leave her. Pale eyes caught the lantern light with an eerie clarity.
Amaxia lifted her spear. "Move again and I drop you."
The woman raised both hands, palms open. "I am not here to harm you."
Scarnax stepped forward, voice hard. "Say your name."
"Meyrha."
Junia frowned. "Who."
Meyrha drew a slow breath that shook at its edges. "The one bound to Samden."
Shaedra’s eyes narrowed. "We do not know that name."
"I know," Meyrha whispered. "He kept himself hidden. That was his duty. To walk unseen and act when your path faltered."
Nasheem blinked. "What do you mean, our path."
"The amazon," Meyrha said softly, looking at Amaxia’s wrists. "The gaol. The officer who slept instead of raising the alarm. You were not alone that night."
Amaxia’s jaw tightened. "So who freed me."
"Samden." Meyrha’s voice thinned. "One of the Hands of Khazra. A monk who walked the world while I watched it through him."
"The arrow in the dirt in Necropolis. Samden. The antidote found in your skiff. Samden. There are more. All Samden." Her voice grew thick with grief.
Scarnax stared at her. "And where is he now."
Meyrha looked down. For a moment her composure wavered. "Dead. His bond broke three months ago. I felt it tear. I followed the echo to you."
The deck fell silent. Scarnax spoke up. "We owe a debt we can't repay."
"He guarded you more than once," she said. "Not because he served you, but because the path you walk matters. Far more than you know."
Shaedra studied her closely. "Why come here. Why reveal any of this."
"Because I felt what killed him." Meyrha pressed a trembling hand against her temple. "And because without Samden I can no longer bear these visions alone. They arrive as storms, relentless, and they point always toward the same truth."
Nasheem swallowed. "Which is."
"Your fate is tied to the Waverider," she said. Her voice steadied. "And you can't sail blindly into fate."
Amaxia lowered her spear a fraction. "So you want passage."
"No." Meyrha met her eyes. "I want to help you live long enough to finish what he began."
Another wave of fog rolled over the rail, cold as grave breath. Meyrha looked toward it, her expression tightening in dread.
"You will understand why I came."

Overview

Brother Samden is one of the Hands of Khazra, a wandering monk tasked with unseen missions that carry him far from the icy terraces of Tseradun. Bound through sacred ritual to Sister Meyrha, a nun who lives her entire life within the Sanctum of Echoes, he walks the world guided by impressions she sends across their bond. Together they act as a single agent in two halves, one moving through the physical world, the other watching from the spiritual threshold. To the crew of the Blue Marlin they appear as an enigmatic force. Sometimes Samden aids them, but always unseen.

Appearance

Samden is lean and wiry, in his early 40s, with the sun darkened skin of a man who has crossed many regions on foot. His head is shaved and his eyes carry a deep stillness and quiet confidence. He wears simple layered robes of ochre and stone gray, although may change to whatever the mission requires. Around his neck hangs a wooden bead carved with the peak of Mount Khazra. His only weapon is a plain wooden staff polished by years of travel.

Sister Meyrha, unseen except in visions and ritual, is a woman in her mid thirties with a calm oval face, dark eyes and hair kept bound beneath a veil of blue silk. Her visions are not a controllable force, they come as they please, and when they happen, her otherwise calm face shows visible strain. Her robes mark her as one of the Eyes of Khazra, embroidered with the faint patterns of mountain winds. She speaks to no one but the spirits and her bound monk.

Personality

Samden is gentle, patient and difficult to provoke. His discipline is absolute and his morality steady, though his reasoning often feels opaque to those outside Khazryn. He favors quiet solutions and avoids unnecessary harm, yet when he commits to action his resolve becomes unbreakable.

Meyrha mirrors him in spirit. She is contemplative, introspective and fiercely devoted to the Way of the Peaks. Her life in the Sanctum has made her serene on the surface yet unbending beneath it. Her sleep is seldom undisturbed, either by visions or by nightmares caused by the visions. While she never speaks aloud, the emotions she sends through the bond carry the weight of her convictions.

Talents

Samden has trained from a young age until his early 30s, and is a master of unarmed combat, as well as staff, capable of disabling foes without killing them. He is adaptable to use any weapon. He is a master of stealth. He can climb, track and travel with little rest. His herbal knowledge is extensive. He possesses uncanny intuition shaped by the bond, allowing him to sense danger or opportunity moments before it forms.

Meyrha does not seek visions. They come to her unbidden, striking like sudden wind across still water. Images press themselves into her mind without warning, flashes of future and memory tangled together. A shadow falling across a path. A sensation of drowning in air. A stranger’s grief felt as if it were her own. Her discipline is not to summon these sights but to endure them, to keep her thoughts from fracturing beneath their weight. Through meditation she learns to bend rather than break, letting the visions pass through her until they soften into impressions she can shape and send to Samden across the bond.

Together they move with a rhythm no outsider fully understands.

Guiding Bond

Their bond is formed in the Hall of Still Waters. It is not a chain and not a conversation but a quiet thread of shared awareness. Samden receives impressions of warmth, dread or urgency. Meyrha receives faint echoes of his surroundings. She cannot guide him directly yet her influence shifts his path. When Samden hesitates she sends him clarity. When Meyrha falters in meditation she feels his confidence like a distant flame. They live separate lives yet their fates braid together.

Relationship with the Blue Marlin

Samden may step forward at a moment of crisis to save a life or open a locked path. He may also bar the crew from a choice that threatens the cause his mission aims to protect. He always does this unseen, with minimal interventions. He has no malice toward them. He respects their courage and resourcefulness. But if their goals run against the designs of Khazra he will oppose them with calm determination.

Meyrha, hidden in the Sanctum, watches the Blue Marlin through flashes carried by the bond. She feels their dangers and their triumphs and quietly adjusts Samden’s course, sometimes helping them, sometimes not.

As the campaign goes on, they will realize that the mission of the Blue Marlin is of prime importance, and will follow them more closely.

Should Samden get killed, Meyrha will be traumatized, but recover. She'll realize the importance of the Blue Marlin, and will do something completely unprecedented: She will leave the monastery, to seek out the Blue Marlin to offer her aid as crew, her visions to guide them. Don't let this happened until the players have noticed a few mysterious interventions, though, and use this moment as a signal that things just got real.

Uses in the Campaign

Unexpected Ally

Samden can appear when the crew is outmatched or in trouble, shifting the balance with precise intervention. His main use is as a tool for the game master to get the players out of an impossible situation, not as a casual helper. Though doing it unseen, always leave some trace that someone unknown helped them. The unexplicably drugged guard, the conveniently placed ladder which wasn't there on the way in, the antidote which is found in their skiff. He is not seen, but his actions are.

Unpredictable Obstacle

He may remove an artifact, free a prisoner or derail a plan because his mission demands it. From a game master viewpoint, this is a way to steer the players discreetly off a wrong path.

Mystic Thread

Meyrha’s impressions give the Game Master subtle ways to foreshadow events or steer the tone without revealing information openly.

Continuity Anchor

Their missions cross continents. Their presence hints at hidden spiritual currents shaping the world beyond mortal politics. Encounters with Samden and the influence of Meyrha remind the crew that some stories run far deeper than the ones written on charts or carried by sailors. Let his interventions leave moral questions behind, not just practical ones.

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